The Recovery of Reason

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     Recently the movie-makers of Russia and Italy collaborated in producing "The Red Tent," a saga of the suffering sustained through the ill-fated attempt of the Italian explorer, Umberto Nobile, to reach the North Pole in the Norge, a blimp constructed for the purpose. Nobile was rescued, to live out his career under a shadow of accusation, because of the death of his own men, and that of the searching parties. Among those who perished in the rescue attempt was Roald Amundsen, whose own feats of Polar exploration have become legendary.

     The movie begins with General Nobile in his apartment, unable to sleep. His conscience will not allow him to rest, so he arises and through force of memory summons back those who perished. As they return from forty years of entombment in Arctic wastes, they hold court, to sit in judgment upon the motives and actions of all involved. The prosecutor is the brash young aviator who flew Nobile back to safety, abandoning his starving companions upon the ice. The judge is Roald Amundsen.

     It is only in fantasy that such scenes can be recalled. Thomas Wolfe in his posthumously published novel "You Can't Go Home Again," makes it clear that we can never recapture the scenes of yesteryear. Five hundred years before Jesus was born into this world, Heraclitus wrote, "You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing in." It is, therefore, impossible to summon our fathers for questioning concerning their actions and motives which passed on to us a splin-

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tered and fragmented restoration movement, rendered imbecilic by its own quarrels, and incapable of securing unity because of its own divisions.

     We are now beset by tradition and frightened to face up to the only eventuality which can rescue us from our sordid and tragic mess. The route back to sanity is simple. It means merely taking the medicine in our own illness which we prescribed for and dispensed to the sectarian world when we posed as the physician instead of the patient. We recommended the ignoring of creeds and divisions which had occurred to split and shiver the religious world, and leaping over them all, to return to things as they were before these transpired. If there is any validity in the ideal of restoration, now that we are riven into a mass of bickering parties our only hope is to ignore our unwritten creeds, and return to the principles upon which we began.

     This is precisely what our brethren fear to do. Each party wants to freeze unity at its own level and entertain the silly and senseless hope that eventually it will argue some and verbally browbeat the remainder into accepting the faction as the one holy, apostolic and catholic church of God upon earth. But to do this would mean to declare a moratorium on thought and reason, for you cannot maintain the status quo except by creating puppets and making robots of those who support it. As Everett Dirksen pointed out in a Washington news conference, "Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, who can't, and those in cemeteries."

     If our brethren do gain a wider vision of God's grace, they still want to confine it according to the denominational categories of the United States Census Bureau. And while they concede that we may in some distant day bring about a workable union of those who do not use instrumental music in their public praise service, they are horror-stricken at the thought of including those whose consciences are not defiled by its use. Thus, the organ becomes more than an instrument of music. It becomes an instrument to batter into subjection individuals and congregations desirous of exhibiting the love of God and promoting the peace of heaven.

     Our brethren have learned as much from the corrupt political world as they have from the incorruptible word of God. And they have borrowed the tactics of the former rather than appropriated the spirit of the latter. By innuendo, threat and boycott, they have thrown a chill mantle of fear over every honest attempt to bridge our chasms. Taking words which have been given a specialized meaning in the theological world, they have applied them to every person who dares to have an original thought, and by such a nefarious method they have been successful in burying any effort to strike the partisan shackles from our wrists.

     A good example is the word "liberal." In recent weeks I have seen this word stamped like a stigma upon men who regard the new translations of the scriptures as useful, upon men who think that individual cups are justifiable, upon those who refuse to attack and castigate Pat and Shirley Boone, and upon those who support Herald of Truth. Of course this works its own rebuke, for when a word comes to mean everything, it comes to mean nothing. When it is then used it reveals nothing about the position of the accused, but merely demonstrates the consummate ignorance of the user.

     In our present state we must not forget that there are many who confuse "walking in the old paths," with "wallowing in the old ruts," and these will be more attracted by emotion than by reason. When they hear one called a liberal it creates a fright psychosis. They must either drive him from them or they must flee from him. We are subject to all sorts of group pressures, and to organized and unorganized tensions. Papers, preachers and presbyters feel called upon to keep us in line, and whatever whip-cracking is necessary will be indulged. Our black brothers are worried about "Uncle Toms," but the white saints are

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worried and bothered by "Simon Legrees."

     I have said all of this because I am quite convinced that we will never throw off our sectarian chains until someone arises who will boldly deny the scripturality and validity of our whole exclusivistic religio-politico institutional stance. And whoever does so must be prepared to pay the price. If our history presages our future, he will be maligned, misrepresented and verbally mauled by those who never met him, heard him speak, or read a word that he wrote. Now I have no desire to become a candidate for banishment or martyrdom, but, like Jeremiah, I am weary from holding in.

     By God's grace, I want to make a statement of my personal conviction. I seek to bind it upon no one else. I will love those who cannot concur as well as those who agree. But I am fed up with "ping-pong diplomacy" in the kingdom of heaven, and with playing tiddleywinks with the unity of the believers. The time is past when we can look out through the chinks in our ivy-covered monastic walls and take an occasional potshot at others with our theological pea-shooters and call it fighting the battle for Jesus. The day is too far spent to have little select groups of the party elite to meet in fancy motels and play "See-Saw" with the agonizing prayer of God's beloved Son.

     A few days ago I read a prediction from the pen of an editor in the restoration movement. He filed accusations against brethren whom he designated as "liberals," castigating them for defending what he calls "centralized control" projects such as Herald of Truth. He declared that they had undermined the faith and spawned a group of educated young radicals who would undo all of the notable spiritual gains for the cause of Christ. He warned that they would begin to advocate that the division over instrumental music was a mistake, and that we should fully recognize those in the Christian Churches as our brethren.

     I trust that you will carefully follow what I am going to say. I have never been more serious. I have never been more deadly in earnest. I am no longer young. I am not a youthful radical. I am staid and conservative in life-style and dress. I have not been influenced or brain-washed by "liberals" at Abilene Christian College. Those brethren have repeatedly given me the brush-off when I pleaded with them to allow me to come and present my thinking to the student body and be questioned by any members of the faculty designated by the administration.

     I am identified with a congregation which does not use instrumental music and never will. I am by conviction opposed to its introduction into the public praise service of the saints. But I state to you, out of a heart filled with reverence for the word of God and respect for all of his children, that the formal division which was made over this issue was the gravest mistake into which Satan seduced our fathers, and if we continue to stubbornly perpetuate the error we will answer for our obduracy at the throne of God.

     Hear me further! It is regrettable that we must deal with instrumental music, for what I am saying applies completely across the board to every one of the motley group of things which we designate as controversial issues. But the instrument was credited with our first cleavage, and it receives the brunt of the attack because of its primacy. Moreover, both sides rushed into the civil courts to protect their physical properties and real estate, and the witnesses who testified in the presence of a gawking public, rubbed salt into the raw wounds inflicted by words with a cutting edge. We eventually crystallized into two denominations as recognized by the census bureau, and now partisan pride, the bane of every religious movement, has kept us apart.

     Our division has become hardened by reason of the debates that have been conducted. These have not explored the path to unity but have been used as a platform for justification for positions already held. Once I was the recognized champion of a school of thought among us. I was summoned to the defense when

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our position was deprecated or attacked. I have appeared upon the forensic stage and engaged in verbal combat with many of the warhorses of contention, pawing, snorting and breathing fire. But I have renounced debate with my brethren as wholly irrelevant and ineffective in our time, to accomplish that great and majestic purpose for which Jesus died.

     We must face up to instrumental music because it is the cultural and historical problem which confronts us. We cannot ignore it. We dare not cease to work for a solution to our division. The hope is that if we can realistically solve this thorny problem we will have discovered the principle upon which every other issue will be placed in a proper perspective. But if we do not solve this we will be a divided movement regardless of how many other matters we dispose of. And no man truly works for the unity of all believers who regards any amount of sectarian division as normal for any of the believers. But the very daring of what I propose raises a number of questions. And I must face them or fail in any attempt to meet the responsibility of a peacemaker.

     1. Does this mean that we repudiate all that for which our fathers fought, and the gains they made in restoring the ancient order?

     I reject no truth for which these noble men struggled. I accept every gain they made in the restoration of the ancient order. But the thinking of our fathers was not always flawless upon this or any other subject. They were often men with limited means of education, suffering deprivation and with few resources for intellectual improvement. They were hardy and vigorous as they had to be to survive on the frontier, but they frequently fought grizzly bears in the daytime, Indians at night, and brethren on Sunday. I came from a mountain area where feuds were passed on from one generation to another, and men killed one another over some fancied insult to the family, long since forgotten. But to kill was the thing to do, because the fathers had killed one another.

     I shall preserve no senseless feud either in my own family or in the family of God. Jesus did not die to form rival clans of the Hatfields and the McCoys. I shall allow no skeletal fingers to reach out from the tomb and snap the fetters of hate around the strings of my heart. On what ground can I demand that Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians cease to walk in the trails which their fathers have blazed while I stumble stolidly along making the same archaic arguments and wresting the same scriptures, through ancestral pride? I accept every truth which my fathers wrung from the fabric of God's revelation, but I reject division in God's family as contrary to that revelation in every respect.

     2. Is it not a fact that instrumental music is condemned by the scriptures?

     Of course not! If it were it would not even be a matter of discussion between sincere and conscientious followers of the Lamb who recognize his Lordship over their lives. The new covenant scriptures do not say it is a sin. They do not teach that it is wrong. They do not once mention it in the context in which we discuss it. Those who consider it to be wrong do so on the basis of deduction from what they think is the tenor of God's word.

     They formulate a presupposition which constitutes their philosophy of interpretation. This constitutes the spectacles through which they read all of God's word. That presupposition is that whatever is not specifically commanded is forbidden. But the Bible does not say that. No one can give "book, chapter and verse" for that statement. Brethren arrive at this presupposition on the basis of isolated texts which they bring into juxtaposition and from which they then reach a conclusion. But our spectacles are not a part of what we read. We don them before we open the Book, and must never confuse our lens with God's light, else we may mistake reflection for revelation.

     We would have but little difficulty if all brethren wore the same spectacles. But others insist upon grinding their own lens as we do ours. They love Jesus as much as we do. They respect his word as

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authority for their lives. But they do not regard me as the divinely-commissioned optometrist for the whole world. They do not believe that God has appointed an official interpreter for the brotherhood, so they do not accept my interpretation as infallibly official. And if I try to bind it upon them they may consider me as infernally officious. Our brethren who use instrumental music do not flout the authority of God's word. They respect Jesus as the Lord of the church, but they do not regard anyone else as Lord of it. And that's where the problem lies!

     3. Does not the authority of silence forbid the use of instrumental music?

     There is no such thing as the authority of silence as a law or code for the body of Christ. The only authority silence has is for the conscience of the individual. It can never be bound upon another, for to do this one would have to speak, and when you do this it is what you speak that is bound and not the silence.

     Silence may be respected but cannot be made authoritative for the simple reason that no one knows why God refrains from speaking in a given instance. To assume that by not mentioning a thing he always intends to forbid it is sheer conjecture. God has no authoritative spokesman to fill in the blanks or to supply the missing information. Those who speak about the authority of silence are always inconsistent and must employ casuistry, since they all have some things God has not specifically mentioned or authorized. No one who makes the argument can ever really live by it, for he makes what God has not said as important as what he did say.

     4. How can unity come about while some use the instrument and others cannot?

     The answer is simple. It involves two things. First, we must cease making the use of the instrument a test of fellowship, and secondly, we must start practicing the local autonomy which we have always proclaimed. We have no right to make anything a condition of fellowship which God has not made a condition of salvation. If brethren are good enough to be accepted by God they are good enough for me to receive. No one is saved because he has the proper understanding of instrumental music at the time he is immersed, and no one will be lost because he is mistaken about it.

     We must resolve not to allow the peculiarities of those in the family to destroy the family relationship. That which produces and sustains life is more important than the things which distinguish between those who have life. We must not destroy him for whom Christ died because of his view about things on which we may disagree. I dare not judge my brother on the one hand, nor despise him upon the other. I am not his master, and he is not my servant. We cannot force or coerce either individuals or congregations into a pattern of our own thought.

     No congregation of saints which opposes instrumental music is ever obligated to adopt it; no congregation which desires to use it can ever be forced by another to relinquish it. Each congregation must be self-governing and self-determining under God. Our task is not to get brethren to unite in their opinion about the instrument, but to be united in Christ Jesus. Such unity is not produced by fondness for things but by affection for the brethren.

     All that we seek is that we all be free to visit and assist one another where we conscientiously can do so, to call upon and recognize one another, to exchange speaking engagements so that we may cultivate closeness and share insights, to pray together, study together, and labor together in areas of mutual concern. Our hope is that the instrument will cease to be an issue among us because all of us will make Jesus Christ central in our life and thought.

     Unity in Christ is not a matter for bargaining and haggling. It is not a matter of all of us meeting under the same roof. My own family does not live in the same house, or even in the same city, and yet we are closely knit together in the bond of love. Unity of the Spirit is not a matter of geographical proximity,

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but of gracious affinity. I am one in the Spirit with every child of God who is here present. I receive all of you, not because I agree with any of you upon every point of doctrine, but because we are all in the same Lord. We are joined to the same head. Fellowship stems from mutual sonship, brotherhood results from a common fatherhood.

     The fellowship of the Spirit is not something that we extend or withdraw. It is something we share. Our task is not to grant it but to guard it in the bond of peace. Fellowship is a state entered by responding to the call of God. "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:9). Everyone who hears the call of God and answers it is in the fellowship, not by the grace of men, but by the grace of God. Fellowship is the atmosphere breathed by all of the children in the family of God. It is the invisible principle which joins every member in a working relationship. It is a gift to the church, and not a gift of it.

     Fellowship in Christ is not contingent upon being right on every point of doctrine, for then there would be no fellowship to be shared by finite beings. It is not the result of each one being perfect, but of each being in the perfect One. One can be in Jesus and be mistaken about many things. God makes allowance for our frailties and shortcomings, which is what longsuffering means. One's views about instrumental music, Herald of Truth, Sunday School classes, individual cups, orphan homes, or Christian colleges, have no relation to fellowship unless he builds a sect around the pro and con of his position and demands that everyone see it as he does. To do this is to play God with other men's lives and thinking, and to become a factionalist, self-condemned and unworthy.

     The things that have troubled us in our day are like the circumcision question which disturbed the saints in the yesterday of the church. The answer of the apostle was "God forbid that I should boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world is crucified to me and I to the world. Circumcision is nothing; uncircumcision is nothing; the only thing that counts is a new creation! Whoever they are who take this principle for their guide, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the whole Israel of God" (Gal. 6:14-l6).

     I have taken this principle for my guide. I have accepted it without quibble! With me the only thing that counts is a new creation. I would no more fracture the body of the Son of God over cups, classes or colleges, than I would over circumcision. I will not separate myself from one of God's new creation because he holds an opinion or claims an experience different from my own. I will not drive from me one who testifies to having spoken in another tongue, whose life bears testimony that he is a new creation of God. So that you will not misunderstand what I am saying, let me be specific. Pat Boone is as much my brother as he ever was. Shirley Boone is as much my sister as she ever was. So far as I am concerned, when it comes to our relationship in Christ, tongues are nothing, and absence of tongues are nothing. The only thing that counts is a new creation. That is the principle I have accepted for my guide!

     Since I have been crucified to the world, and the world to me, the cross of my Lord is everything. It is the sole ground of my glorying. The question with me is not "What do you think of tongues?" It is not, "What do you think of the Herald of Truth program?" It is not, "What do you think of dividing the assembly into classes?" The question with me is, "What do you think of Christ? Whose Son is he?" And I can receive all who receive Christ, regardless of what else they claim to receive, if it does not lead them to deny him.

     I take very seriously the apostolic statement, "You, my friends, were called to be free men; only do not turn your freedom into licence for your lower nature, but be servants to one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in a single commandment: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you go on

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fighting one another, tooth and nail, all you can expect is mutual destruction."

     I cannot forget that the same writer also said, "Let us then keep to this way of thinking, those of us who are mature. If there is any point on which you think differently, this also God will make plain to you. Only let our conduct be consistent with the level we have already reached" (Philippians 3:15, 16).

     Again he wrote, "And may God, the source of all fortitude and all encouragement, grant that you may agree with one another after the manner of Christ Jesus, so that with one mind and one voice you may praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In a word, accept one another, as Christ accepted us, to the glory of God" (Romans 15:5-7).

     I implore you to begin this very night to repair the breaches that have been made in the walls of Zion. If there is a brother present from whom you have stood aloof, and toward whom you have turned the cold shoulder, because he could not honestly concur with your views, go to him in humility and ask him to forgive you. Do not wait to see what the preachers will do. Do not wait to get the reaction of the church. Go to your brother! This means no change of conviction toward your position but simply a change of attitude toward a brother for whom Christ died.

     If there is a family present, the members of which once sat at the table of the Lord with you, but who were driven forth because of misunderstanding or for conscience' sake, and you have been cold and indifferent, apathetic and unconcerned about them, let the precious Spirit of God drive you to them. Build a bridge of good-will and genuine love to span the chasm between your hearts.

     We need no fanfare, no national unity conferences, no delegate conventions, to bring about the oneness for which Jesus prayed on that fateful night when tragedy stalked his steps like a grim shadow. All we need is to ignore the barriers we have created, batter down the party walls we have erected, humble the hearts that we have hardened, and God will send his blessing upon this city, and from you could go forth a tidal wave of brotherly love that can transform this universe and usher in a time of revival such as has never before been seen.

     Let us recapture that spirit of fellowship by reaffirming the fellowship of the Spirit. Let us exalt Christ and make him the One, so that we can all be one in Christ. The price that we are paying for our division is a lost world. It is too great a price. The cost is too heavy! Jesus has said that the world will not be won to believe in Christ, until those who believe in Christ in the world are one. The greatest missionary power ever unleashed upon an unbelieving and perishing world will be the unity of the believers. If unity is to begin, then let it begin here. Let it begin now!