Applied Dogmatism

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     Religious society is the object of our present concern. Christian society is composed of infants, or minors, and adults. These, when admitted to the kingdom or commonwealth over which Jesus Christ presides, have certain natural, inherent, and inalienable rights. Amongst these are the preservation and enjoyment of Christian life, the acquisition and enjoyment of Christian reputation, and the pursuit and application of Christian wealth. These are the inalienable rights of Christians. They are all born equally free and equally independent of foreign agency.--Alexander Campbell, in The Christian Baptist, August 3, 1829, page 5.

     Since writing the main article and answering the questions it contains I have decided to express myself a little further about the serious problem created when dogmatism leads to despotism and reduces the Lord's children to mere serfs, stealing from them their glorious heritage of freedom in Christ. I will deal primarily with abuses of the eldership, but I would not have our readers think I am singling out elders because they are more obstinate and intractable than others. There are hundreds of wonderful and worthy men who are functioning as bishops. Those who are otherwise often stand as they do because of the influence of preachers and editors. They might have turned out to be good men if they had been left alone by the partisan and political manipulators.

     In the organizational set-up which we have devised and which we confuse with the "Lord's church" the eldership in many places has been elevated to a status unknown to the primitive saints. It is now an upper echelon power structure which wields control over the lives of saints which is virtually absolute and from which there can be no appeal for redress of grievances.

     A few years ago two elders and less than one-third of the congregation in a midwestern state, publicly withdrew from a third elder and the remaining two-thirds of the congregation. The affair ended up in the civil court and various preachers were called to qualify as experts and to testify as to "the doctrine, the customs, the teaching and practice, of the church of Christ with respect to the question of who has the authority in a particular congregation."

     One of the oldest and best known preachers in the South, testified that the elders had the authority over the possession, custody and control of all buildings and physical property, and to regulate the programs and policies of the congregation, and if "a substantial body of the membership assumed a contrary attitude about the matter," the elders could drive them out and retain control.

     The opposing counsel, who was an elder of another congregation in Texas, said to the witness, "I will ask you if it is not the teaching and practice and custom and doctrine of the church all over the country, to accord to every member, officer or otherwise, of any congregation, the right of self-defense in a hearing or investigation of a charge against him? Answer that question."

     The prominent evangelist replied, "It is not mandatory, nor is it the practice of the church of Christ to accord to any man, necessarily, what you say. He may be withdrawn from, and is often withdrawn from, without even being advised the act was going to take place of being withdrawn from, and maybe not even notified for weeks he was withdrawn from."

     The transcript of the testimony furnished by the official court stenographer shows that the preacher hedged all over the place when he was asked to explain what Peter meant when he said, "Neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock." The witness, hailed as one of the greatest expositors in "The Church of Christ" miserably failed when the counsel bombarded him with that.

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     This is a case in point to demonstrate that the community founded upon faith and love often acts in an arbitrary and imperious manner not even countenanced among the kingdoms of this world. Imperial Rome, which savagely persecuted the Christians did not behave in such an arrogant and high-handed manner. Even Porcius Festus, the Roman procurator said, "I answered them that it was not the custom of the Romans to give up any one before the accused met his accusers face to face, and had opportunity to make his defense concerning the charge laid against him." When the Roman political hacks demonstrate a greater fairness and justice toward those accused as criminals than elders of the church do toward their brethren, it is no wonder that young people flee the confines of the institutional church.

     In a certain town out west the elders gave notice to a respected brother that he would have to quit holding Bible study and prayer sessions in his home on Tuesday nights until he received permission from them to conduct such meetings and they could assign one of their number to be present and keep an eye on the proceedings. The basis of this cease and desist order was a report which some local "Hawkshaw" had retailed to the elders that the host had called upon a good Baptist neighbor to petition the throne of grace while they kneeled on the living-room rug to pray.

     A brother in Texas, a rather outstanding business executive who shares some of my views about fellowship, secured a bundle of papers each month which he kept on his office desk and passed out to those he thought might appreciate them. One day he received an official "writ of mandamus" demanding that he no longer distribute dangerous and harmful material, nor disseminate heresy produced by W. Carl Ketcherside. Although signed by all four elders, it did not sound like them. A little inquiry revealed it had been written by the preacher who then got the elders to affix their signatures to try and help save the congregation from the awful sin of regarding me as a brother. However, the preacher soon left town owing quite a few merchants who could not collect their accounts from him. No further notices were served on the brother in business, so he doubled his order for Mission Messenger and is passing out twice as many. It is interesting that each month, one of the elders comes up to the office and borrows one of the papers under the guise of seeing how far I am going!

     Down south, in a beautiful city where anything can happen and practically every thing does, the elders went on a little enforcement binge to get everybody into their palatial structure every time the doors opened, and to build up the treasury for the programs they had arbitrarily included in the budget without consulting the rest of the saints. They held an exclusive meeting with the preacher and came up with a document which was mailed to every member declaring that any person who was absent without prior leave or permission for three consecutive Sundays would automatically have his name stricken from the roster, and in order to be re-instated would have to march down to the front on his return and confess his wrongs. The preacher not only approved this dogmatic action but tried to justify it in a sermon by misapplying the scriptures.

     A lot of good folk who have been victimized by "The System" live in constant dread that the axe will fall upon them. The brethren have devised a chain of association ban, so when someone is cast out, a warning is issued not to have anything to do with him. And the remote control reaches down several links, so that a brother may be excluded for associating with someone, who associates with someone, who associates with the original one who was dismissed for thinking that Jesus may get here before the millennium does.

     This creates some real problems of enforcement for the elders. In one place they excluded a brother who was the star bowler on a team which included

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two other members, one of whom was a deacon. The elders served notice on these two that they could continue to play with the one excluded but they must not step up to the snack counter with him in the rink because the Bible says, "With such a one no not to eat." He could bowl on the same team but could not eat potato chips out of the same bag. The deacon, who told me about it, said he asked the elder, "Doesn't the Bible say that the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play?" The elder replied that he did not know but would look it up!

     All of this helps to develop some first-class sleuths, as well as some second-class sneaks. Once I was in a short series of meetings with a little group in a small southern town. I decided to get out and visit some of the brethren who were members of the larger congregation whose preacher had warned them from the pulpit the Sunday before not to attend my studies. "This will be your only warning and it is final," he said.

     At the first place I called, the brother came out on the porch and he was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He did not invite me in. He did not even ask me to be seated on the porch. Knowing this was hardly the hospitality for which the area was noted I watched the street. A black car cruised slowly by three times. Later I learned that it was one of the elders "casing the joint" to see if I was welcomed.

     But now, before you feel inclined to "lower the boom" on the elders in our great land, pause a moment to realize that most of these brethren are basically good men. Outside of the organizational bailiwick they are polite and even genteel. But given a little power and placed under all the pressures applied by preachers, and neighboring congregations, they react emotionally, and even while destroying the body, think they are defending it. They are victims, like those under them, of the factional system which deceives men and destroys the best that is in them, burning the real manhood out of their hearts.

     The party spirit is insidious and delusive. It has that subtle faculty of crushing out virtues and values, and of turning gentlemen into boorish and insulting personalities under the mistaken idea that to be loyal to Jesus one must be insolent to his brethren. That the sanctity of homes and the privacy of business offices can be violated by men who intrude themselves as guardians of the faith and morals is a clear indication of Satan's power to hoodwink both the perpetrators and the victims.

     As bad as the usurpation of rights may be, however, it is not nearly so dangerous as the creation of unwritten creeds by which to judge the honest opinions of humble men and women and thrust them forth from congregations they have sacrificed to build. Nothing Rome has ever done as a persecuting power exceeds in spirit what "the Lord's church" has perpetrated in some localities. Let me mention one example to illustrate to you what I mean.

     A certain man and his wife, members of a congregation they had labored to help build for almost a quarter of a century, found their marriage in difficulty for reasons which need not be mentioned here. Since all of their children were faithful in service to the congregation, and their grandchildren regularly attended, they knew they must find some answer to their problem which would allow them to finish their course with joy. In her desperation the wife mentioned her anxiety to a neighbor who was a devout Methodist. The neighbor told her that she and her husband had gone through the same trauma but had been delivered from it by an experience with Christ through the Holy Spirit.

     One evening the Methodist couple knocked on the door and after being invited in, sat down and told them what had happened to their own lives through prayer. The apparent radiance they exhibited made an impression upon the man and his wife, and they sat talking

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until midnight after their neighbors had returned home. Although they had not prayed together for years, they finally were driven to their knees by an uncontrollable desire to talk to God, and with their arms about each other, weeping, sobbing and shaking, they confessed their real feelings and errors to one another, and cried unto God for help and strength.

     This was a strange and uninhibited thing for them to do, but about two o'clock in the morning, according to their testimony, the wife said she felt a tingling sensation start at the crown of her head and travel down her entire body, and at once she uttered two or three words or syllables which made no sense to her. After this she experienced an ineffable sense of release and peace. They continued together to talk to God until the streaks of dawn appeared and they realized they had continued all night in prayer. In an embrace of deep trust and security they accepted one another, each as God's gift to the other.

     It was the wife who made the mistake. In her newly-found release and happiness she simply had to tell someone. First she called her daughters and the daughter-in-law to tell them that Jesus was real and had moved into their home. It frightened her daughters who thought she had "gone off her rocker." One of them hurried over to check on her, with a promise to call her sister if she needed help to restrain her mother. She found her "clothed and in her right mind" sitting at the kitchen table and reading from The Living Bible.

     That was not the mistake! It was made when the wife called one of her best friends, the wife of an elder. In less than two days the news had flashed throughout the whole congregation that the couple had "gone Pentecostal" and were having prayer meetings in their home with Methodists. Although their experience had only occurred on Monday night, when they arrived for midweek meeting on Wednesday night, things were different. Friends who greeted them were strangely subdued. They did not linger to visit as usual. The woman was seized with an impulse to throw her arms around the elder's wife, but she later described it as trying to hug a gunny sack full of leaves and grass clippings. The elders were up front in conference with the preacher, both before and after the meeting, and did not come back to greet the audience as was their custom.

     The next day one of the elders telephoned and asked if he and his fellow-elders could come over and meet with them on Friday night. They were invited to do so, and arrived at the time appointed. One of them opened by saying, "Well, I guess you know why we are here." The husband replied, "No, we don't but we praise God that you came." When he said "praise God" it was as if someone had pulled the same string on three puppets. They all jumped at once. I need not bore you with the details.

     The happy couple were informed that nothing really had happened unto them, that the days of supernatural signs had long since passed, and that which is perfect came about two thousand years ago. They were given orders not to mention or talk about any experience to any person, either in the church or out of it, and were informed that if they did not acknowledge their wrong it would be the duty of the elders to take appropriate action.

     The wife spoke up, "But I cannot help speaking the things I have seen and heard." The elders assured her that she had been mistaken, that she was overwrought and had been hysterical. One of them said, "You are a woman, you know!" It ended by the husband asking if they might pray together. Reluctantly the elders agreed but remained seated while the couple kneeled. After the husband had prayed, there was an awkward silence. No one else prayed but at the door one of the elders said, "I hope you'll realize we did what we had to do, and that you'll repent and return to the fold." As their car backed out of the driveway the man and his wife found

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themselves staring at one another in open-mouthed astonishment.

     The following Sunday the preacher announced that error (he pronounced it "era") was rampant in the community, and to save the church from the evil work of Satan he was going to deliver a series of talks, six in number, on the work of the Holy Spirit. He went through the outlines received in the Christian college he had attended but almost "ran out of soap" before he finished. Meanwhile the couple did not broadcast what had happened, but when anyone asked about it related it as they had to the elders. When the preacher concluded his six dissertations one of the elders called and asked if they had seen their wrong and would acknowledge it. He became highly incensed when they calmly said they had not changed at all, and if anything, were even stronger in their conviction that something extraordinary had happened in their lives.

     The next week they received a formal letter charging them with advocating false doctrine, insubordination to the elders, rebellion against Christ and refusing to acknowledge the truth as set forth by a faithful preacher of the word. They were notified that unless they contacted the elders before Saturday night, to indicate their repentance and willingness to confess the guilt of the charges, they would be withdrawn from on Sunday morning. On Sunday they occupied their accustomed seats. One of the elders stood up and read a statement to the effect that they had counselled and prayed over them to no avail and because of their stubborn adherence to error they were hereby excluded.

     The brother arose and asked if he might say a word. The elder was nonplussed and upset, so the preacher quickly arose and stated that the church could not allow false teachers to speak, and quoted 2 John 9, 10, "If any man come and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house nor bid him Godspeed." A former elder, who had resigned three years before, then arose and said, "I do not think that scripture has any relation to this situation, and I suggest that we listen to what the brother has to say." The elder, who by this time had recovered his voice said, "Sit down and do it now! You are out of order! The elders have the authority here and you cannot question them. I'll prefer charges against you just like I did these other two."

     In the next several weeks more than forty people were excluded because of their protests at such despotic measures. They began meeting in the home of one of the brethren. When I last heard from them they were happy in the company of one another. No one else had "spoken in tongues" but the warmth of the fellowship was such that they regarded their trials and persecutions as God's deliverance from an intolerable situation. There was no spirit of rivalry toward the brethren who had excluded them, but when any of them attended at the meetinghouse they were virtually ignored. Men who had contributed thousands of dollars to help erect it were never called upon to pray within its walls. Those who had made no commitment to Jesus were given a warm welcome when they attended, but the brethren were given a cold shoulder.

     This would be a tragic occurrence, fit to make angels weep, if it were an isolated case. Such callous regard for fundamental human rights, with its repercussion in the family and social life of the saints is frightening to contemplate. It runs counter to the very spirit which Jesus came to inculcate. But evidence is mounting to indicate that it is a rather common phenomenon in many parts of the country. I am persuaded that scores of preachers are living in a state of internal disruption, torn between what God expects and what the elders demand. The erosion of personal integrity under such circumstances is great. Men pay a price for trying to conform outwardly while their very bowels scream out in anguished protest.

     The sheep are being led through troubled and tempestuous waves rather than beside the still waters. They stand

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in abject terror and cannot lie down in green pastures. And it is the axe in the hand of the shepherds and not the fangs in the mouth of the wolf which they fear most. "The System" has become a Juggernaut, relentlessly grinding its way, and crushing the pilgrims beneath its tread. And as bad as all this may be the saddest feature is that it has substituted another creed for Christ. Regardless of how deeply one may trust in Jesus it is no longer of any avail. It is a personal opinion about this thing or that which opens or bars the door to congregational grace.

     When our brethren exalt an opinion about instrumental music, the support of Herald of Truth, the millennium, cups, classes or colleges, to the place that a personal view about these cancels the divine-human relationship which Jesus came to create by His atoning blood, they have sold the church down the river and done despite to the Spirit of grace. When elders ruthlessly trample underfoot the very sense of human justice because men cannot deny an experience, whether they are mistaken about it or not, then we are on the road to tyranny and despotism.

     Every scripture quoted to divide and separate brethren, and to fragment and splinter the glorious body of the Son of God is misapplied. Every arbitrary action to harass humble saints and to ride roughshod over their sensitive feelings without giving them opportunity for defense before their accusers is usurpation of the worst kind. It freezes ignorance at the present level, places a premium upon spiritual illiteracy and enshrines the status quo as the ultimate of heaven's plan. It stunts growth, stultifies the conscience and promotes hypocrisy of the deepest dye.

     In conclusion, I testify again, as I have said before, that I admire and revere shepherds who look with love upon the flock of God. Such men are an inspiration to my life and a blessing to my soul. But I deplore those who become drunken upon the wine of their self-importance, and who play God with the lives of others. Jesus did not purchase the ekklesia as a kingdom for petty tyrants, but as the royal domain to be governed from heaven where He sits at the right hand of God.

     May heaven deliver us from the system into which we have grown and which chokes the spiritual life out of the fairest and best, while retaining and exalting those who are blind conformists, and who mistake obsequious acquiescence to the will of men for obeisance to the Lamb of God. If this seems too strong, I can but say in the oft-quoted words of Thomas Jefferson, "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."