The Backlash
W. Carl Ketcherside
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Every amateur fisherman who has fooled around with a casting rod knows what a backlash is. When one sends the line flying through the guides, he must use his thumb to apply pressure to the reel, or the spool will continue to revolve after the line has reached its maximum thrust. If it does, the line remaining on the spool spills off to create an ingloriously tangled mess. One of our Canadian guides always referred to a backlash as "a bird's nest." Another called it "spaghetti," while still another referred to it as "a can of worms." You do not need to be experienced to realize that all three of these have in common the intertwining of their chief ingredient in a snarl or tangle.
But there is another usage of the word not related to the mechanical. The dictionary defines it as "a sudden, violent recoil or reaction, as of a wave of popular opinion." It is in that sense I use it in this article and I refer to the current unrest and resentment which characterizes "the Church of Christ." Of course it is manifest in other religious establishments as well, even the Roman Catholic, but I want to discuss it in the particular frame of reference which I know best.
One would have to be completely insensitive to reality if he did not recognize that "the Church of Christ" is in difficulty. Of course this will be denied by the partisan publicity purveyors whose task it is to defend the institutional image, but they are not especially noted for objectivity, and will probably go down with the ship, still waving the flag and insisting that all is well, even to their final gurgle.
We have gloried so long in the cleverly-contrived fiction that we are "the fastest growing religious movement" in this age, that it will be difficult for most brethren to admit that we are not as big as we boasted of being. How would you determine the membership of the Churches of Christ? Dr. DeGroot said it was done by the editor of the Gospel Advocate, who multiplied his subscription list by the size of his hat. Who is counted in the "rough estimate" supplied as being "reasonably authentic"? Does the figure include all two dozen antagonistic parties which do not recognize one another as "loyal," and will not even call upon rival adherents to pray to the one God and Father of us all?
Regardless of who is included, the whole factional mess is seething with unrest and discontent. Young people in college are abandoning it in droves. Others of their number are waiting for the chance to "go over the hill" in a way that will not "upset the folks." What a lot of them do not realize is that "the folks" are holding on by the skin of their spiritual teeth rather than to "upset the children." A lot of this has to do with the tenor of the times which are times of general revolution, but a great deal of it stems from the fact that institutional arrogance and insolence have had their day, and the members have had their fill of it. They are sick and tired of the fighting, squabbling. Jealousy and hostility which passes for loyalty to the Christ who died for our sins.
This kind of frank appraisal brings deep resentment from some quarters. It subjects us to a barrage of verbal attacks. Nothing is said if one points out the shortcomings of our Baptist and Methodist friends. There is an open season on them. They are always fair game. But to reveal our own sectarian attitudes is to "speak against the Lord's church." And right there is one of the problems! We have confused the religious scene which developed from an early nineteenth century restoration attempt, sparked primarily by good Presbyterians, with the one body. And we have cultivated a spirit of hostility and exclusivism which is worse than that of many groups under our fire.
I should like to go on record as saying that I do not equate any of our two dozen factions with "the Lord's church." For that matter, I do not consider that all of them jammed together constitute
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To brand a particular movement, with its multiplied squabbles and schisms as "the Lord's church," in opposition to all of the other children of God upon earth, caught up in the same kind of problem, smacks of a kind of bigotry which will effectually isolate us and force us to retreat deeper within our monastic walls. "The Church of Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one." So wrote Thomas Campbell, while still a Presbyterian. He was correct then as he faced up to sectarianism, and his pronouncement is just as true now as we face up to our own sectarianism. I should like to analyze our present state and tell you why I think that a lot of sincere brothers and sisters are gritting their teeth because of what has happened unto us.
"The grandeur, sublimity and beauty of the foundation of hope, and of ecclesiastical or social union, established by the author and founder of Christianity, consisted in this--that the belief of one fact, and that upon the best evidence in the world, is all that is requisite as far as faith goes, to salvation. The belief of this one fact, and submission to one institution as expressive of it, is all that is required of Heaven to admission into the church." Note that Campbell said that belief of this one fact is the foundation of "ecclesiastical or social union."
Walter Scott wrote, "Christianity, therefore, has a fixed, fundamental, constitutional truth for its creed--forever the same." He also said, "It is no doctrine that Christ taught, nor any action that he performed, that forms the article of faith in the gospel. It is himself--as God's Son." Again, he wrote, "Every party creed is exclusive, and, therefore, has no proof, as such, for its truth and authority but the party formed and raised upon it. But the true creed--the divinity of the Messiah--has the vote of God, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, and of all the holy apostles and Christians of the first ages."
Regardless of what opinions, deductions, rationalizations and speculations a man may hold, these in no sense nullify his relationship to God if he firmly believes in the testimony afforded to the Messiahship and divine Sonship of Jesus of Nazareth. It is none of our concern, and we have no right to engage in an inquisition to determine his orthodoxy. Alexander Campbell aptly stated it thus, "Whether he believes the five points condemned, or the five points approved, by the Synod of Dort is not so much as to be asked of him; whether he holds any of the views of the Calvinists or Arminians, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, or Quakers, is never once to be asked of such persons, in order to admission into the Christian community called the church."
This simply means that men of divergent views, ideas and opinions may come together in Jesus and on Jesus, as the one foundation and there be built into one holy temple in the Lord. To elevate any opinion or deduction to a test of union or communion is to formulate another creed and create another sect. No point of view and no view of a point can ever
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The non-instrument Churches of Christ were betrayed into becoming a sectarian party when they elevated an opinion or interpretation related to music to a condition or test of fellowship. Regardless of whether such mechanical accompaniment to praise may eventually be proscribed, endorsed or ignored by heaven, is not the question. It was made an article of faith and elevated to a creedal status. And it caused a schism, a party, as such things always do.
Once a movement suffers such a cleavage it ceases to be a force for unity among the sects and only aggravates the condition by contributing to the existing hostility and partisan wrangling. It is silly to think of those who cannot stay together as having any appeal to others to come together.
In our case a veritable Pandora's box of evils was unleashed and we now have at least two dozen unwritten creeds. Every party among us is built upon a foundation, and that foundation is a creed. It is something to which one must subscribe in order to be accepted and recognized as in good standing in the party. The only authority for such a creed is the party erected upon it. It comes by rationalization, not revelation. It is human in origin and without eternal or universal merit. The creed is validated only by the party "somewhats." They constitute the sole authority for it. It must be accepted upon their interpretation. Every party, segment and faction in "the Church of Christ" today rests its partisan existence upon the wisdom of men, and not upon the wisdom from above.
This does not say that every person in this historical framework rests his faith on men's wisdom. Many are like myself, they no longer support a partisan position, nor pay lipservice to a narrow and exclusive creed. They belong only to Christ Jesus. They have extricated themselves from the toils of inferior creeds. Obviously they are under suspicion and attack by those who are still in the bonds of creedal slavery, but this is always the price of freedom, and it is always worth the price.
There is a great wave of growing dissatisfaction among the brethren. Many of them have long been better than their narrow creeds. They are becoming better educated. Authoritarian structures always depend to a great extent upon ignorance and apathy. When the constituency begins to think and act the establishment is in danger. That is the problem with the Roman Catholic Church in our day, a monolithic system with which we have had much more in common than we have been willing to admit.
A lot of folk are going A.W.O.L., being filled with frustration and baffled by the power politics of the powers-that-be. Since the word "discouragement" isn't really a part of my spiritual vocabulary I am "staying put." There isn't so much use of swapping parties and exchanging one set of problems for another. If I do not live for Jesus where I am I'd probably not set the world on fire for him in a strange environment. Fly-by-nights reveal much more about themselves than about those from whom they flee. A dog does not really better himself by changing the fleas to which he has become accustomed for a new batch with which he will have to become acquainted and which may not understand his temperament.
Is there any hope for "the Church of Christ"? Will it ever get back on the track again and out of the blackberry bushes along the right-of-way? I am a little reluctant to make any prediction since I do not have the gift of prophecy. I know what we need to do, but to get brethren to do it is not going to be at all easy. After you have debated a position for years, drummed up a lot of arguments, and misapplied a number of scriptures to sustain them, it is hard on your pride to haul down your flag and admit that you have been so nearsighted you could not tell the difference between
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But we need to be brave and daring enough to go back to the fork in the road where we became schismatics and candidly admit that we were wrong in setting up a "non-instrument creed" as the basis of our hope of eternal life. We can argue, fuss, debate and quarrel about all of the trivia which has occupied our time since, but we will never again be a project to unite the Christians in all of the sects until we can unite the Christians in the restoration movement. We must declare all of our own sects null and void, and cease to even think that we will ever convert the believing world to our little parties, and also cease to think that God wants us to do it!
Even if we were to settle "the Sunday School question," the support of Herald of Truth, the problem of individuals cups, and all the rest of our factional hangups, we would still be a divided people, and a laughing-stock to the thinking world. Unless we cultivate vision as opposed to division, and foresight as opposed to hindsight, we will have no real influence. We cannot truly lay the foundation of God because we are so busy defending our own partisan foundations.
Let me emphasize again that the question is not the right or wrong of using instrumental music. Important as that may seem to you, it is purely secondary and inferior. The question is whether any opinion or view should be elevated to creedal status and be allowed to displace the noble confession which God himself made and upon which Jesus said he would plant the community of the called and chosen ones.
Just as the adoption of our first partisan creed paved the way for succeeding schisms, so each new division lays the groundwork for another. We will continue to divide until we renounce the whole insane tendency which causes the body to tear at its own flesh and rend its own tissue. It is useless to continue the fabric of false argument contrived under the duress of debate. It offers nothing to a tired and jaded world except more of the same sterility, stupidity and insecurity. It is time to go back, all the way back, and recapture the foundational principle of unity and offer it to the whole sectarian world as the one hope for oneness in Christ Jesus, our Savior and Lord!
Let us forget the silly and asinine pride which causes us to bicker like immature children over who was to blame originally. The question is not about who split the log, but who is going to glue it back together again. While we are pointing accusing fingers at one another about what our fathers did, the world is dying and going to hell. How much longer will we stand hurling verbal insults at brethren while Satan takes a holiday and the angel of death thrusts his sickle in and cuts down the grain of the earth?
I do not propose that we "patch up our difficulties." The time is too far spent for that. I propose that we strip off the whole ragged garment, splashed with the fratricidal blood of God's other children and put on the new robe of righteousness. I propose that we abandon our pillboxes to the moles and the bats, and cease to man our artificial bastions, and all of us move back into the true fortress of God, where we can sing together, "We have a strong city whose walls and ramparts are our deliverance. Open the gates to let a righteous nation in, a nation that keeps the faith."
Banish every creed but Christ Jesus! Chop down every party standard! Eradicate every test of fellowship except the one God enunciated. Use justice as a plumb-line and righteousness as a plummet! Rise up out of the dust of ignominy and shame. Cease to fight over opinions. Ignore them and love the brethren--all of them, those who disagree with you as much as those who agree. Stop trying to be of one opinion. Such oneness cannot save. Its absence cannot damn. Alexander Campbell wrote thus:
"Reason and experience unite their testimony in assuring us that, in the same proportion as individuals labor to
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In the exercise of a wisdom that has long since been lost by those who are historical heirs of the movement with which Campbell was identified, he went on to make these sage observations:
"If I were to attempt to produce the greatest uniformity of opinion, I would set about it by paying no respect to opinions, laying no emphasis upon them, admiring and contemning no opinion as such. But if I wished to produce the greatest discrepancies in opinion, I would call some damnably dangerous, others of vital importance; I would always eulogize the sound, and censure the erroneous in opinions. We all know that strife is like the bursting forth of water, it always widens the channels; and many a broil in churches, neighborhoods and families, would have been prevented if the first indication had been sympathetically attributed to the infirmity of human nature."
I think it can be said, without exaggeration, that many brethren are far ahead of the leadership in knowledge and in desire for peace. They are sick of being treated like little children playing in the marketplace, tired of being the pawns in religious political maneuverings. They are ready to divest themselves of factional garb and don the garment of reconciling love. Our sympathies are with those who rebel at the idea of being kept in the dark by those whom they pay huge sums to enlighten them.
The day of the whip-cracking hierarchy is drawing to a close. If brethren cannot meet without being subjected to party propaganda and hostility they will meet in their homes, and welcome all of their brethren, without catechizing them as to their opinions. They will receive one another in Christ Jesus as God has received us all. The Church of Christ has a dismal future unless it renounces its sectarian stance and seeks to be what it has always professed to be.