Things to Come

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     There comes a time in the life of a man who has fought for a cause when he must risk his all on the result of a single decision. To me, that time has arrived. It was twelve years ago that I turned my back on my former factional attitude and committed my life to the task of helping in a weak way, to bring peace to the schism-wracked heirs of the restoration movement. During that time great changes have occurred in the world about us and these have affected men in every religious movement.

     Many who were laboring within the framework of our own movement have abandoned it for other fields. Some have argued that the restoration ideal has no validity in this secular age and that it is a sheer waste of time to expend efforts upon those whose arrogant attitude toward others of God's children only serves to widen existing gaps. I do not concur in that type of thinking. Our brethren have a great many faults, of course, and I am no exception. But one will not find perfection by going somewhere else. He may only run into more problems and some of these will be worse than those from which he fled. In any event, I am staying. I intend to be neither frightened nor bought off.

     But I do think the time has come for a real searching of God's word, our present condition, and our own hearts. We are divided, strife-torn and rent into factions. No amount of congratulatory writing can eliminate this cold fact. In some cities there are as many as eight or ten separate groups of restoration heirs, meeting in selfish exclusivism, often hating and being hated by the others. Each faction equates its own adherents with the people of God, while those who gather to memorialize the Lord elsewhere are regarded as traitors and apostates.

     Citizenship in the kingdom of heaven is no longer a matter of commitment to the King, but is judged by one's concurrence with the partisan test proposed by the faction. Humble prayers, a consecrated daily walk, and a deep spiritual concern count for nothing. All of these are negated by a special view of music or the millennium, or of cups, classes, colleges, or some other secondary matter hoisted into prominence by a "pro" or "anti" party. Even the most unassuming servant of the Lord is attacked with animosity and bitterness if he merely transfers his attendance to a place of meeting sponsored by another segment. Hostility and hatred are manifested toward other children of a common Father in journals, church bulletins and radio programs.

     Our present course is shameful. It disgraces the name of the Son of God. It bespeaks our own shallow thinking when we allow the relationship created by his precious blood to be broken up over our trivial matters of controversy. That there should be even two rival parties operating in one community, each claiming that it alone basks in divine favor while the others are all reprobates is frighten-

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ing; that there should be ten or more is an unthinkable tragedy. Can we continue to go on in such a state until death claims us? Dare any of us be coldly concerned for our own faction alone and never seek to make peace with our other brethren? Has it come to pass that the very peacemakers who are blessed by the master are damned by his disciples?

     What is the real basis for our division? Every one of the factions says it is lack of respect for the authority of the scriptures. Every one believes that it alone respects that authority while all of the others do not. Each is righteous in its own sight. Each is wise in its own conceits. If the Word is as plain and simple in every detail as the brethren declare it is, why are there any divisions at all? Do only dishonest persons divide? The time has arrived to go deeper than our superficial answers which are parroted from one generation to another while divisions increase and chasms grow wider.

     We cannot continue in our childish and petulant course, blaming all others while proclaiming our own innocence and freedom from guilt. It must be admitted that our attitude toward the new covenant scriptures has created division among honest and sincere brethren. Our divisions are no monuments of disregard for God's word, but living testimony to our attempts to follow its teaching. There is not a single faction among us that does not credit its very isolation and separation to its solemn adherence to the Bible.

     Whatever our thinking in the past it has solved nothing. Under its influence we have grown to be an ever-decreasing proportionate minority in an expanding world. We cannot even stay together or work together among ourselves. We have shattered and fragmented the very movement of which we are a part, a grand and noble effort in its incipiency with the goal of "uniting the Christians in all of the sects." I refuse to believe that my brethren in any of our own sects are deliberate rebels and malicious rogues. They are eager to serve the Lord and to please him.

     Even a casual reasoner can see that if all of our warring tribes declare that basic to our unity is regard for the sacred scriptures, and if every splinter party declares that it alone is following the scriptures, there must be something wrong with the way in which we regard the scriptures. And it is apparent from our history that so long as we regard the scriptures as we do we must continue to divide and tear the body of Christ. We are doomed to a new schism in every generation if we continue on our mad course!

     In 1970, if the Lord wills and I live, it is my intention to probe our difficulty in the restoration movement in a way I have never done it before. I am going to ask my brethren questions which will cause those who are honest to evaluate anew their concept of the role designed for the new covenant scriptures in the ongoing life of the people of God. My brethren have posed as champions of the truth of heaven in the field of religious polemics. They have been bold in challenging the very ground upon which others stand. I propose very humbly and sincerely to let them see how they appear on the other side of the fence.

     The reason why we must anticipate a united attack on all fronts is because I am not waging a factional battle. I am not defending one party in the restoration movement as opposed to other parties. I am not a factional champion. What I shall do is to challenge the whole ground of Church of Christism. And I shall be striking at what I believe is the root of our problem, which is a mistaken view of the design and purpose of the apostolic writings. I will not be questioning whether this faction or that has recaptured "the pattern." Instead, I will be questioning if it was ever the design of heaven to provide for us a meticulous and stereotyped formula of procedure for all ages and climes.

     I am going to ask what things were said and done by Jesus purely as a part of a contemporary and cultural setting? I am going to ask what was absolutely essential to please God in the life of the

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apostles, and what things were incidental, products of the place and time. It is my intention to show that what our brethren call the pattern was not prescribed by God at all, but is a compilation and collation of partisan deductions and traditional preconceptions, so that each group has constructed and cobbled up its own "pattern" so that we now have two dozen different patterns, all of which profess to be a restoration of the divine order.

     In this, I intend to be as gracious and generous as I can, but I shall be as relentless in the exposure of our fallacies and pretences as I will be in the search for truth. I think the time is at hand when we should be forced to face up to the fact that our brethren have built a "house of straw" upon a foundation of sand. This will mean that I will be called upon to deal with our divisions as they exist. I shall try to do this without rudeness for I have a deep sense of compassion for those who are gripped by partisan fear. However, I intend for my readers to know what I am talking about when I uncover the weakness inherent in our crazy-quilt pattern of strife and division.

     I accept the new covenant scriptures as a revelation of the infinite mind and thought. I shall defend them against all who would abuse them, either by denying their divine origin or by warping and twisting them into a position their giver never intended. Which Church of Christ today, of our two dozen sects, has the divine pattern? Which of these respects the authority of the Book and the Lordship of Jesus? We cannot much longer deal with these matters as we have in the past by biting and devouring one another. I shall explore these and other questions as pertinent without fear or favor.

     In the ensuing year we can promise you, God being our helper, that your hearts will be challenged, your minds stretched, and your lives enriched. The series of articles for 1970 will all be written around the theme, "The Living Pattern." We pray that you will continue to read what will be said, and we urge you to pray for us as we write.

     We are grateful to God that we are again closing a year with all bills paid. Our readership list is the largest it has ever been. This means that our expenses are heavier because the subscription rate does not nearly pay the cost of printing and mailing the paper for a year. Inflation makes one month of the publication cost us more than a whole year when we started over thirty years ago.

     Spirit-filled brothers and sisters make up the difference, God bless their precious hearts. Some of them send every month, choosing to support what we are doing as a vital mission of peace to our brethren torn by strife and disunity, rather than placing their contribution in the institutional church to aid and enhance a factional image. We never use a cent of money contributed to the paper for our own use. All of the work done in conjunction with it goes without remuneration. It is a work of faith and labor of love shared by some of the most wonderful saints in our world of crisis.

     The subscription price will remain at one dollar per year, and we shall use any overplus to mail the paper to those who cannot pay for it or might never see it except through the generosity of someone who really cares!

     Actually, our 1970 series will begin with the February issue. The January number will contain a reprint in full of the editorial "Faith or Opinion" by Brother Ruel Lemmons, which appeared in the Firm Foundation, for September 30. I expect to analyze that editorial point by point, and show how the attitude taken by our brethren in current unity talks will only serve to enhance the factional and divisive course of the past. It is sectarian to make tests of fellowship where God has made none, and to fracture the family of the Father into warring tribes over artificial issues. It is time that we start facing up to the real troubles which beset us, and my reply to this article will zero in on the problem in an honest appraisal which you will want to read.