About the Church
W. Carl Ketcherside
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The questions with which I am dealing in this issue resulted from an interview with a young brother who was doing a paper on the theme of my writings concerning the nature of the church. Space will not permit me to deal with all of the questions but the following will give you a good idea of my position.
1. Do you regard the kingdom of God as identical with the church for which Jesus died?
I think the expression "kingdom of God" is a more extensive one than the word church as used in the new covenant scriptures. Kingdom is uniformly from basileia and this does not refer to place, location or territory, but to rule, reign or sovereignty. The expression "kingdom of God" thus denotes the sovereign Lordship of God over his people or over the universe of his creation. There has never been a time when the kingdom of God did not exist.
David declared that the Lord "is king for ever and ever" (Psalm 10:16) and said he was "the great sovereign over all the earth" (Psalm 47:2). He wrote, "God is king of all the earth...God reigns over the nations, God is seated on his holy throne." God did not abdicate his sovereignty because of sin. He has always occupied the throne and held sway over the universe. When the Word became flesh and came to dwell among us, bringing grace and truth, a new order was introduced, and men were called upon to reform their lives because the rule of heaven was approaching.
It was the intention of the Father to bestow all authority in heaven and upon earth on the Son, and those who accepted the sovereignty of Jesus over their lives, and acknowledged his lordship, would become citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Since these were called out of a state of alienation into a union with Jesus, they were regarded as the ekklesia, the elect of God, a term which has been unfortunately and mistakenly rendered "church" in the King James and a good many subsequent versions.
The apostle Paul wrote to God's people at Colossae, "The Father has made you fit to share the heritage of God's people in the realm of light. He rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us away into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom our release is secured and our sins, forgiven" (Col. 1:12, 13). All of those who have been born of the water and of the Spirit constitute the community of the new humanity, and are in the kingdom of heaven. Because the foundation principle is the fact of the Messiahship and divine Sonship of Jesus, our Lord declared he would plant his community upon it, and spoke of it as the kingdom of heaven.
There is no difference between the scope of the expression "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven." Matthew employed the latter term because his gospel
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In a sense, the kingdom of heaven is more comprehensive now than is the church. Everyone who is in the church is in the kingdom, but not everyone who is in the kingdom is in the church. There are infants and imbeciles in the kingdom but not in the church, since the latter is composed of those who are responsible believers. There are angels in the kingdom and when the Son of man comes on the throne of His glory the holy angels will accompany him. It is those who are responsible for their sins before God who must be born from above in order to gain identity in the kingdom.
While the kingdom as it is now exhibited on earth embraces those who are reconciled unto God by the death of his Son, and who are still in the flesh, there remains another and a glorified phase. God always adapts his revelation and requirements to man as he is and the kingdom of heaven as now administered in the earth is adapted to men in the flesh. It is so ordered as to make possible forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God and prepare us for sharing the life of God and the redeemed ones in a state free from the limitations and inhibitions of time and space.
There is an exalted and glorified habitude which flesh and blood cannot inherit (1Cor. 15:50). Accordingly there must be a resurrection for those who are dead and a transformation of those who are alive when the Lord comes. There will be only two classes of persons--those who are on the earth and those who are in it. These will exchange the animal body for a spiritual body consonant with the full enjoyment of eternal life. Thus, Paul solemnly charges Timothy by the coming appearance and reign of the Lord (2 Tim. 4:1), and declares that "the Lord will rescue me from every attempt to do me harm, and keep me safe until his heavenly reign begins" (4:18).
My personal view, reached from my own study, is that there has always been a kingdom or rule of heaven, and that the ekklesia, the called-out ones constitute "the people of God" on earth at present and are the manifestation of the rule which began when Jesus sat down at the right hand of God, having been made both Lord and Christ. But there remains for the people of God a glorification in which they will share when this present life of suffering is over. "Our troubles are slight and short-lived; and their outcome an eternal glory which outweighs them all" (2 Cor. 4:17).
It can be seen from what I have written that I regard the word "kingdom" as applied to the rule of the heavens, as more expansive than "church" which refers to the called-out ones under his headship. The kingdom of God did not begin with the church. So I do not say that kingdom and church are synonymous terms in the new covenant scriptures, although they are sometimes used interchangeably. There is a difference as every astute linguistic student will at once recognize.
If your own reasoning and education has led you to a divergent view I will not fall out with you or argue with you about it. I shall simply rejoice that you have thought enough about it to form your own mental conviction regarding a subject of so much spiritual interest. My only concern is that all of us live up to the responsibility of citizens in such a magnificent realm of faith, hope and love. "The kingdom we are given is unshakable; let us therefore give thanks to God, and so worship him as he would be worshiped, with reverence and awe; for our God is a devouring fire."
To be quite honest with you, I am not the least bit concerned with sectarian debates over the kingdom because I have learned that men argue and fight about various phases and aspects of the kingdom, each one viewing it from his own level of understanding and attainment. Often they are all partly right and partly
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You'll recall that "six men of Indostan to learning much inclined" went to examine an elephant, "though all of them were blind." The one who stumbled against the side of the beast declared an elephant was like a wall, the one who felt the tusk opted for a spear, while the one who seized the trunk contended it was like a snake. The fourth felt about the knee and thought "the elephant is very like a tree," while the fifth chanced to touch the ear and concluded it was like a fan. The sixth grabbed hold of the tail and forthwith thought of the elephant as "very like a rope."
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right
And all were in the wrong.
So oft, in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen.I cherish my personal views about the nature and extent of the kingdom of God, although I have only begun to understand some of the former mystery which has been revealed through Jesus Christ and the holy apostles. I share my observations, as I have here, when asked about them, but I will not dogmatize about a matter so stupendous as the transcendent rule of the heavens.
I never forget the words of Thomas Jefferson, written in 1816: "On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from the moral principles, all mankind from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind." One can be a loyal citizen of the United States without understanding all of the ramifications of political science, and he can be a faithful subject of the Lord of life and still be quite ignorant of many things the prophets foretold and the apostle revealed. If he cannot, a lot of us are in serious trouble!
2. In your previous writings you have expressed the thought that the word "church" should not be in the Bible. I do not understand what you mean. Can you explain it to me?
I will try. Sometimes when a thing seems so obvious and decisive to me I have difficulty in making it clear to others. I overlook the fact that they have not done the countless hours of reading and research on the topic that preceded my own personal conclusion. I am sure you will forgive me if I tend to spend more time on this subject than you think it deserves. It is far more important than a mere hassling or haggling over a semantic whim. A real principle is involved.
The word rendered by "church" in some English versions is ekklesia, which is a combined form of ek, out, and kaleo, to call. It does not, however, mean simply to call a people out of a condition, but to call them together, or summon them into assembly. The corresponding word in Hebrew is qahal, which occurs 162 times in the old covenant scriptures. It is rendered by assembly 17 times, company 17, and congregation 86. In the Septuagint Version, which was the Greek version in use when Jesus was upon the earth, the word used as the equivalent was ekklesia. We can be certain that Jesus used the word with the same connotation as did the rest of the Jewish community.
It is interesting that the translators appointed by King James, when dealing with the old covenant scriptures never once used the word church. They had the Septuagint before them and knew where it used ekklesia as a translation of qahal, but they unvaryingly used assembly or congregation, and never once used church. Why did they not follow the same formula in the nev covenant scriptures?
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Moreover, before the text was printed, twelve delegates from the original fifty-four scholars met to review and revise the entire translation. In addition to the versions the king had mentioned in his directions, they had for comparison Luther's German translation, Zwingli's German translation, the Rheims and Douay versions, Olivetan's French translation, Latin translations by Pagninus, Munster, Castalio, and Erasmus, plus the Plantin Polyglot, and Spanish and Italian translations. But they also used the Aramaic Targum, the Syriac New Testament, and the best Greek and Hebrew manuscripts available at that time.
Why did they ignore scholarship, previous translations, and their own consistent renderings in the old covenant scriptures, by insisting on the word "church" in the new covenant scriptures? "Church" is not a translation of ekklesia. It is not even related to it. It occurs in various languages, such as the German kirche, the Dutch kerk, and the Scottish kirk. But it is derived from kuriakon oikos, the house of a lord. It probably stems from the days of feudalism when the lord lived in a manor atop the hill and his serfs eked out a wretched existence in the valley below. When it was adopted by the religious world it was applied to "a building for Christian worship," a structure set apart from the homes, dedicated and consecrated to a worship of God.
This whole concept is utterly foreign to the revelation of God in Christ and is responsible for some of the most tragic deviations from the divine purpose. It is still perpetuated by well-meaning, but ignorant people, who have organized and institutionalized the redeemed ones into various types of sectarian polarization. So widespread is this misconception that one who calls attention to it now is regarded as a heretic or a nitwit.
The reason why the translators appointed by James started us on the rough and weary road of institutionalism is quite simple. James the First believed in the divine right of kings. He held that his right was hereditary, and that he was responsible to God alone and not to his subjects. As "Defender of the Faith" he regarded himself as head of the State Church, and in a position to authorize a version to be read publicly in it. The term "congregation" tended to weaken the establishment over which he regarded himself as head.
His Majesty recommended fourteen rules to regulate the translators and sent copies of them to Cambridge, Oxford and Westminster, where the work was to be done. The third rule reads: "The old ecclesiastical words to be kept; as the word church, not to be translated congregation, etc." Apparently the king knew that the translators would render ekklesia by congregation if they were not forbidden by his legal fiat. One can but wonder what would have happened if the unwarranted word "church" had never been used in the scriptures? What would our signboards say? What would have happened to all of the sermons on the name of the church?
Alexander Campbell recognized the importance of this matter and in the appendix to Living Oracles inserted this
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He then proceeds to give lengthy quotations from the two eminent scholars, and ends with this observation about the preference for congregation: "There is no good reason given, nor can there be any produced, for departing, in any instance, from the acknowledged meaning of a word of such frequent occurrence; and more especially when it is admitted that this term fitly represents the original one. The term church, or kirk, is an abbreviation of the words kuriou oikos, the house of the Lord, and does not translate the term ekklesia."
In the book Alexander Campbell and His New Version, Cecil K. Thomas writes: "A translation which was probably as significant as 'immerse' was the substitution of 'congregation' for 'church.' Campbell frequently cited the older English versions, for this usage. His reason for giving the reading was that he felt 'church' to be an ecclesiastical word. It had taken on a theological connotation which had not attached itself to ekklesia in its New Testament usage. He felt that the word 'congregation' properly represented the Greek word without being cumbered with a variety of meanings such as that of church building or ecclesiastical organization."
In 1955 there came from the press of Dobson Books, Ltd., in London, the first translation of the new covenant scriptures into English by a Jew, Hugh J. Schonfield. It was called The Authentic New Testament, and the publishers said of the translator: "By placing the New Testament firmly in its own period, and relating the text to the contemporary literature, customs and ideas, he has been able to furnish a vivid and intelligible rendering and throw new light on many passages. It is on these grounds that the title arises, the term 'authentic' relating to the quality of the New Testament itself as it may be read in the Greek, its accurate reflection of the atmosphere of the period in which the documents were written."
In every instance the word "immerse" is used instead of baptize, envoy is used instead of apostle, supervisor instead of bishop, and community instead of church. Of such terms Schonfield says in his Introduction, "The translator has felt it to be important for his purpose not to employ in his rendering familiar ecclesiastical terms where they could be avoided, since the use of them would give the impression that they were peculiarly Christian in origin and association." We read in The Authentic New Testament such passages as these:
"John the Immerser appeared in the wilderness, announcing a penitential immersion for forgiveness of sins."
"'Travel the world over' he told them, 'and proclaim the News to all creation. Whoever believes and is immersed will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.'"
"And so I tell you, since you are Peter, upon that rock I will found my Community, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
"All the Christian communities send their regards" (Romans 16:16).
Now, all of this will help explain why I contend that the word "church" should not be in the scriptures. It is an ecclesiastical term injected by translators under orders of a profligate king. It is not a translation of the word it purports to represent, and it serves only to confuse and confound the minds of the masses as to the meaning of the Spirit.
3. What false impressions can result from use of the word "church"? Granted you are right about it, what difference will it make?
it hardly seems to me that your question reflects a wholesome attitude for one who claims to "speak where the Bible speaks." It is important to remember that this involves speaking as the Bible speaks, that is, reproducing and conveying the ideas which the Spirit put into the
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In listing his "Synopsis of Reform" the first obligation stated by Alexander Campbell was to recapture the vocabulary of the Holy Spirit. Men cannot think without the use of words, but it is likewise true that the words we use will determine what and how we think. If we would think clearly we must employ words which correctly delineate ideas and intents. To settle for a misleading term simply because it is hallowed by tradition is merely to prefer error to truth after it has become sanctified by repeated usage.
The word "church" in our day conveys an idea of a religious establishment or organization wholly foreign to the new covenant scriptures. Nowhere has one read of "members of the church" in God's word, yet this is a frequent idiom in our speech. By it we mean an adherent of an organization, but the Greeks had no word for such. The word melos referred to a limb or organ of the body, a vital and integral part of an organism. Every time the word member occurs in the new covenant scriptures it is in connection with the word body. This is not the result of mere chance, but the correct usage of the word.
So far have we digressed along the organizational route that we use the word church to designate rival religious establishments. We speak of the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church, or the Presbyterian Church. But the word ekklesia which we have rendered "church" is not an organization, society or federation created by receiving men into "membership." Instead it is a brotherhood consisting of all the redeemed upon earth, a body created by God and composed of every saved person in the world.
It is the community of the born again ones, joined to one another and to Jesus by the indwelling Spirit. Every reform movement which expects to return men closer to God's ideal must begin here. If we mistake the nature of the ekklesia, the people of God, we will wander without a goal and breast the waves without a compass. Even Martin Luther, the monk of Ehrfurt, realized this. Kent S. Knutson, associate professor of systematic theology at Luther Theological Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota said, "Community was the key word used in original Reformation thought to describe the nature of the church. The church to Luther is the communio sanctorum, the sanctified community."
He writes further about the thinking of Luther in these words: "Even the word 'church' seemed to have lost its usefulness. He discovered that the popular mind thought of either the church building or the institutional and organizational aspects when the German Kirche was mentioned. Kirche in the German Bible is the translation of the Greek ekklesia, which strictly translated means assembly or gathering. Luther maintained that this meaning would be retained better in German if the word ekklesia were translated 'congregation,' or best of all, and most clearly, 'holy Christendom.' The Latin communio he preferred to be translated Gemeinde, congregation or community. To make it even more simple he would have liked to have the creed read: 'I believe that there is a holy Christian people,' and let it go at that."
The German reformer was more nearly correct on this than a lot of his critics with whom I am well acquainted but will not identify.
If you will pardon me, I would like to pay my respects now to one who is known by the formidable title of "The Right Reverend Lesslie Newbigin, Associate General Secretary, and Director of the Division of World Mission and Evangelism, World Council of Churches." Lesslie Newbigin, with whom I have personally corresponded, was born in England and it was his intention to go into his father's coal and shipping business. But his plan was defected because, as he said, he had "an experience of the reality of God" while a student at Queen's College,
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I have been reading after his pen for a number of years and I freely acknowledge my debt to him for many insights. One of the most cherished of his books in my library of contemporary material is The Household of God, published in Great Britain in 1953. In it he writes: "There is an actual visible, earthly company which is addressed as 'the people of God,' the 'Body of Christ.' It is surely a fact of inexhaustible significance that what our Lord left behind Him was not a book, nor a creed, nor a system of thought, nor a rule of life, but a visible community. I think that we Protestants cannot too often reflect on that fact. He committed the entire work of salvation to that community. It was not that a community gathered around an idea, so that the idea was primary and the community secondary. It was that a community called together by the deliberate choice of the Lord Himself, and recreated in Him, gradually sought--and is seeking--to make explicit who He is and what He has done."
While I am acknowledging obligations, many of my readers who have heard me speak, will recall that I have frequently mentioned the book One Body in Christ, written by Kokichi Kurosaki. I want to give you one idea developed by this sincere Japanese believer:
"Fellowship between God and man, interrupted by the sin of the first Adam, was reopened by redemption bought with the blood of the last Adam. Now anyone can have direct koinonia with God and share His very life--anyone can live a life of love and unity with Christ. This is really the center of Christianity and 'faith' is nothing other than having this life union with God. To be justified by faith means that God has access to repentant sinners through Christ and is thus able to enjoy this koinonia with them.
"If we will practice this living union with Christ, loving each other without any concern about sects and denominations, doctrines or forms, then we shall have the Body of Christ with him as Head. This is the Ekklesia in its truest and purest sense. Therefore, The Ekklesia is not an institution, not a system, not theology, not the words of the Bible, and not any ritual or ceremony. The Ekklesia exists where there is life union with God through Christ."
4. Are you saying, then, that you do not believe that Jesus founded a church?
Well, that's putting it quite bluntly, and I am a wee bit reluctant to state it just that way. I hardly feel that one should lay his head on the chopping-block for careless thinkers to lop off with a dull axe. A good many of my brethren prefer to wander around inside of traditional fences and if someone is attracted to the wider range of God's grace they feel obligated to practice their quick-draw and gun him down, as a sign of their fidelity to the party.
But let us face up to reality. I have said that Jesus constituted an ekklesia by the shedding of his blood, and that the word "church" does not represent or translate that word. Boiled down and simmered away, this means that I do not think of Jesus as building a structured organization upon the magnificent and profound truth that he is the Messiah and the Son of the Living God. Startling as it may seem when I enunciate it, a "church" was not in God's plan at all.
All of the debates about the divine organization, including those in which I once engaged, are so much poppycock. What Jesus did leave us is a community, the people of God, ransomed and redeemed, and drawn unto him who shed his blood to make us one. A community is composed of people drawn together by a common tie, and that common tie in this instance is trust in God's Son. It is not a trust based upon a subjective experience, but engendered by the compelling weight of testimony and fact. It is a communion, or fellowship, and this is what Jesus really planted, a koinonia of sharers in the common life, the life of God, that is, eternal life.
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This would eliminate a lot of ridiculous queries. No one would ask another upon meeting him, "Of what church are you a member?" There would be no use for such statements as "This is the first time the Lord's church has ever met in this area." All of our journals are continually harping on "planting the Lord's church in Wisconsin, New Zealand, or Timbuctoo," but if we purified our language we would learn that we have been trying to plant something in some area which God did not even plant on earth.
A necessary corollary of all this is that the community of believers in one locality may not implement their approach to the world of unbelievers around them as do those in other localities. The Message will be the same because it is the very basis upon which the community is gathered. There could be no community of heaven upon any other basis. The Message preceded the community and the community came into existence out of response to the Message. The Message is unalterable and unchangeable. Its elements are fixed because they are facts, the facts of history.
The community, and all of those who are in it, must be free to adapt to circumstances in order to make the Message effective and achieve the divine purpose of summoning and gathering those of every culture, environment and background. So long as we think of one body as a legal corporation, an organizational entity, with every facet of procedure predetermined and fixed by divine fiat, we will continue to bind the body and lose the world. We need to think long and seriously about the apostolic example.
"I am a free man and own no master; but I have made myself every man's servant, to win over as many as possible. To Jews, I became like a Jew, to win Jews; as they are subjects of the Law of Moses, I put myself under that law to win them, although I am not myself subject to it. To win Gentiles, who are outside the Law, I made myself like one of them, although I am not in truth outside God's law, being under the law of Christ. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. Indeed, I have become everything in turn to men of every sort, so that in one way or another I may save some. All this I do for the sake of the Gospel, to bear my part in proclaiming it" (1 Cor. 9:19-22).
What this means is that the Community in a Jewish area will be different than one in a Gentile area. There will be a flexibility of approach rather than rigidity of structure. No imposition of cultural means will be imposed upon others as essential to sharing in the life of Jesus. The Community of love will, like those who compose it, "become everything in turn to men of every sort," never once forgetting that this is not the end of its purpose, but the means to the end, to save some. This must be done "for the sake of the Gospel," and the gospel must never be sacrificed or compromised.
In a lesser degree, and in a more pragmatic sense, this means the cessation of our own struggle to impose upon various communities of saints, the means and methods which seem best adapted to our own work of faith and labor of love. For example, a community of believers which operates its teaching process without use of classes will not seek to bind this approach upon others as the divine will, even though it may regard it as more nearly like the functioning of the primitive saints.
This will be much easier to do if we cease to talk about the church as "God's only organization!" We are wrong on two counts! God really has no "church"
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It is my opinion that so long as we are "hooked" on organization and "high" on institutionalism we will continue to develop sectarian rivalry, promote the party spirit, hate other brethren, and destroy those for whom Christ died. It will be a difficult task for most of us to change because of the fears and insecurity offered by our partisan walls and enclosures. After all, the traffic seems pretty dashing and dazzling to one who has spent most of his life in prison, and I can sympathize with a monk who scampers back inside the monastery door after trying to cross the street to the drug store!
But Jesus left the serenity of heaven and made himself vulnerable in a body plunged headlong into a sinful world. He is still doing that, only now I am a part, an organ, of that body, and I am vulnerable. If I seem a little daring in this answer to your question, that will explain why. I am really trying to travel with Jesus, and it is not made any easier with brethren hurling verbal brickbats at you and trying to "rock you to sleep."
5. Do you have any real hope of brethren adopting the views you have enunciated, or do you think yours is a hopeless cause?
I am not so arrogant as to assume that I will have any great success in a field in which a giant like Alexander Campbell failed. He wrote copiously on this theme and even brought out a version of the new covenant scriptures in which the word "church" did not once appear. Many of our pioneer brethren hailed this with rejoicing, but their successors, having allowed the restoration movement to become sectarianized, were caught up in the race for pride and prestige, and they wanted the movement to become "a church." They wanted an organization like the Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians.
Most of the brethren do not really think very deeply in our generation. There are two reasons for this. In the first place, it has been dangerous to think for almost a century. When conformity became the ideal, original thinking was automatically stifled. In our entrenched sectarianism a thinker immediately became a heretic and was subjected to brutal verbal attack and eventual boycott. Since every sect always "skims the brains off the top" and retains the masses of conformity, eventually a group becomes inbred in thinking, sterile and stolid. One does not need to think about his destination while on a treadmill and it is best not to think if you already have a perfect knowledge.
Secondly, tradition always blinds men to truth. Instead of the search to discover truth, it is assumed that what we have is truth, and the only searching that is done is to find additional arguments to be used as justification for it. Most men who have a series of sermon outlines on "The Lord's Church" are not about to scrap them and tell the audiences from which they extract financial support to defend "the church" that all have been mistaken. Imagine the consternation which would occur in Nashville or Dallas if a prominent "Church of Christ preacher" announced that there was no "church" in God's program at all, and that the word ought not to appear in the sacred scriptures.
But I do not think mine is a hopeless cause. I am responsible for stating what appears to me to be the truth. The response to it by others is their responsibility. I can only plant and water. It is God who must give the increase. I do not know what discouragement means because my trust is in God and not in men. If I can keep the fire kindled in my brief sojourn on earth, a worthier and better qualified person may light his
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I certainly have no hesitancy in stating my optimism, even now. We are rearing a generation of consecrated and eager young men and women who are "fed up" with our sham and show. They are disgusted with our blatant sectarianism while trying to hide behind a non-sectarian facade. They are repulsed by the emptiness and vacuity manifested in borrowed sermon outlines and they are seriously questioning the whole organizational and structural approach into which we have channeled the glorious family of God.
The task is great because of the frightful amount of "bureaucracy" and the vested interests. Even inside the sectarian framework created by Church of Christism, each party has its exclusive journals, schools and mission programs. Some have homes, loan systems, and other things with millions of dollars invested. These spiritual handmaidens seek to share the table and the purse of the bride of Christ and huddle beneath her umbrella until she can hardly be seen in our day. Fortunately, the primitive saints had no tax shelter investments and no financial projects. Since they had nothing invested but their lives that is all they could lose.
In company with all other sects we have built up self-perpetuating interests through wills, annuities, trusts and endowments, until we cannot now stop the machinery. We equate our tax-sheltered investment programs with "stewardship to God" and the giving of millions to human organizations as "faithfulness to the Lord's church." And we, like all others, have our scriptural turns and twists by which we equate this with God's ultimate design. In many places, the Christian cannot use his wealth to relieve the needs of humanity. He must funnel his "giving" through the institution, surrendering it into the hands of men who make all of the decisions, and, after taking his money, throw him out if he protests the way it is used or abused.
Perhaps there is no other organization in our modern world which practices "taxation without representation" with the same degree of flagrant disregard for the rights of individuals as the Church of Christ. Huge corporations at least mail out proxy ballots to remote investors, but among our brethren, the women, our sisters in Christ, are threatened with hell if they do not contribute of their means, and are debarred from attending business meetings in which others decide on how their money is spent. And all of this on the basis that women are to keep silent in the churches--and in "business meetings"!
So, to a lot of people it seems like sheer folly for an insignificant voice like mine to be raised against the relentless crushing power of the Juggernaut of institutionalism which would prostitute the very bride of Christ and force her to sell herself for the favors and baubles of men. But I am not at all disconcerted. I am quite convinced that if men like myself kept still out of fear that the "stones would cry out"!
God's will is going to be done on this earth as it is in heaven! If the great institutional complex to which the minds of men have given birth will not do it, then in other ways and other times, God will providentially make it possible for His ultimate purpose to be accomplished. My task is to be true to God as I understand His will and purpose for my life. It is to resist selling out or being frightened off. I must stand, and having done all, continue to stand. What happens to me personally is really of little concern. A few years from now my name will be forgotten, as it ought to be. But if I can resist the further encroachment of the sectarian stance and give strength to someone who otherwise might weaken in the struggle I will lay down my armor at the end with joy!
I am not certain when my brethren will reverse the trend toward institutionalism and return to the ideal of the "family of God." But, as I visualize it, we must quit trying to be "a church" for
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In a family circle the fortunate constituents have the same care for one another. It is real and genuine. It is not an attitude adopted only when you come to the table. Everyone wants to be with everyone else, because love is a magnetic force which draws them closer together. Many of our ills will pass away if we will just be "family" instead of "church." And this is what I am really pleading for in our generation. I think there is real hope for us! Please allow me to quote for you a little statement by Elton Trueblood as it appears in that outstanding little volume entitled The Common Ventures of Life:
"If we wish to have a really important religion we must make a complete break with the one-hour-a-week concept. We must see our religion, not primarily as what goes on in a peculiar building with pointed arches and stained-glass windows, but as the way in which all ordinary enterprises are conducted. It must be connected with the way we eat, the way we work, the way we make love, the way we think, the way we dream, the way we die. We must become aware of the devotional paradox to the effect that frequently the books which are most conducive to the spirit of devotion were not written for that purpose and are not usually classified as religious books at all. Religion, to be effective, must be envisaged, not as one enterprise among others, but as the frame in which all enterprises are set. That religion will have most meaning which touches common life redemptively at the most points."