The Hope That Cheers

W. Carl Ketcherside


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     A few days ago I received a letter from a young couple in a western state who were in the throes of a spiritual depression. They had been reared in the Church of Christ in Texas and had both attended since they were infants and had been carried in the arms of their parents. Now they were facing a traumatic decision. The situation in the local congregation was such that they felt miserable and unhappy and they saw no possibility of its changing for the better. Instead, they felt that it would grow worse.

     They painted a rather grim picture of a congregation caught up in the enslaving bonds of legalism. The sermons on Lord's Day were sterile and dry, with the preacher grinding out the same old grist, and administering dosages of the same old pap, which had no relevance to life. The elders were good men except for their jealousy for their position and assumed authority. The congregation owned a nice physical structure, purchased chiefly with Texas money, but it had become a monastic setting from which the Spirit had fled. The young people had also departed the scene

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as they became old enough and about all that was left was the boast of loyalty, not to Jesus, but to tradition!

     Recently a man and wife who were teachers in the local schools had been driven out as "liberals" because they had proposed closing down on Wednesday nights to allow the handful of "faithful" to visit other religious organizations or to remain home and share with their own families. After the suggestion had been made and emphatically vetoed by the elders, the preacher began to insinuate that there were subversives among them. The scriptures were quoted to show that men would arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples."

     The teacher and his wife, tiring of being harangued under cover, began to visit other places on Sunday nights, cultivating the acquaintance of prominent Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians. They began a prayer and study session for these in their home, only to be visited by the elders who informed them that they would not be allowed to continue unless an elder was present at each meeting. They had to be under the "oversight" in all public or private teaching of the Word. Without raising his voice, the teacher said that his first obligation was to God and he would not desist from teaching in his home or anywhere else that an opportunity was afforded. Charges were preferred against him of rebelling against the authority of the elders, and were signed by the preacher who wrote them out and by the elders who read them publicly. Notice of the "withdrawal" was sent to every congregation in the whole area.

     The young couple who wrote me in their bitterness of soul wanted to know what had happened to the church. They were distraught and disillusioned. Their world had fallen in on them. I think they should not be so disturbed for what has happened was inevitable. And it is not limited to the Church of Christ but is quite characterisitc of most religious denominations in our age, especially those which have known little of the grace of God, and whose members have regarded themselves as "keepers of orthodoxy" and members of the squad of "heavenly law officers."

     One of the first grave mistakes of our fathers, and they made a lot of them, was equating a movement inaugurated to restore unity, with the church of God referred to in the scriptures. After they had done so and had fastened on the designation "Church of Christ" to distinguish them from others, they began to think of themselves as the kingdom of heaven to the exclusion of all who did not at once join their number. One who searches the new covenant scriptures will realize that they describe the church but do not designate it with a title. When our immediate ancestors did so they denominated it and thereby launched it into the rivalry with other sects and denominations which continues until this very day.

     In a sort of unwarranted arrogance they challenged all others to deny that the historical movement was scriptural in name, origin, faith, doctrine and practice, and convinced themselves by textual manipulation that what they had contrived was identical with what the apostles had planted and any deviation from the "traditional pattern" was heresy and apostasy. In the days when ignorance was widespread on the frontier, and few men could read, the scrap-doctors had a field day, but we now live in an age when men have been taught to think for themselves. With the current intellectual explosion every authoritarian structure is in danger and no religious party can escape the challenge.

     Every dogmatic institution feels the threat of unprejudiced thought and seeks ways to inhibit and prohibit it. For decades it was dangerous to think originally in the Churches of Christ. All truth had been discovered. The plan of God had been perfectly restored. There was nothing left but to be faithful to our tradition, although we called it "the faith once delivered." Any new thought was an innovation. Preachers became parrots rather than proclaimers. The church seemed to have borrowed a leaf from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:


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     "Let me have men about me that are fat,
     Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep 0' nights:
     Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
     He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."
     Now we are passing through a period of soul-searching and re-examination, and this is good. It is also upsetting and those who like for things to move with unrippled calm are often disturbed. But the "sea of glass" is in heaven. So long as we are upon earth we will have troubles and there will be waves. Such a condition is necessary to test our faith and our steadfastness.

     My hope is not founded upon parties and movements. These are the work of men, honest men who seek to recapture the divine purpose. But I am grounded on the Rock of Ages. My identification is with him. I shall not be moved away from the hope of the gospel. Come what may, my life is hid with Christ in God. I intend to stay so close beside him that nothing will shake me.

     I know a brother and sister in Christ who are no longer young. Realizing that one day they will come face to face with the Lord of glory they began sometime ago to use the largess with which God had blessed them to mail out copies of trenchant material showing the corrosive and spirit-shrinking influence of the legalistic spirit. For this they have come under the suspicion and criticism of the local "somewhats." Every Sunday morning without fail the preacher issues veiled warnings of "the subversive influence among us." Sermons are punctuated with the suggestion that "if you do not like the church you ought to get out of it."

     But while this aging couple may not like much of what passes for religion, they love the church. They are willing to spend and be spent for it. So they return each Sunday to their modest home to pray for those who think of them as dangerous traitors to the very cause for which they have sacrificed so much. The number of such people is growing. They are not all youthful revolutionaries, either. Many of them have whitened locks and walk with stooped and bent frame.

     They have grown tired of bigotry and intolerance. They are fed up with negative preaching by the products of schools created to defend the sectarian status quo. They are doing their own thinking. They are studying afresh the revelation of heaven. They are casting off the partisan garb in a desire to don the robes of righteousness. And it is because of this that the spirit of factionalism has fallen upon hard times and the spirit of fellowship is growing in the land.

     The secret of life is wrapped up in him who revealed the secret of the ages. The commandment of God which assures that what we ask will be granted is to pledge allegiance unto him and to love one another as he has loved us. Let not one who does this spend his time in nurturing remorse, or in nourishing hostility or fear. As Charles Sumner has expressed it:

     "The world, with ignorant or intolerant judgment, may condemn; the countenance of companion may be averted; the heart of friend may grow cold; but the consciousness of duty done will be sweeter than the applause of the world, than the continuance of companion or the heart of friend."


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