The Carnal Spirit

W. Carl Ketcherside

[Page 14]

     One of the tragic features about that list of sordid things called "the works of the flesh" is that they seldom appear singly in the heart. One who is infected with the virus of carnality often develops a variety of symptoms, not all of which are external and visible. This seems especially true of "the party spirit," an insidious disease which causes one to regard those who flock together around an issue unfurled as a sectarian battle standard, as infallible in interpretation and wholly consecrated to God.

     Every party tolerates within its ranks those who are greedy, covetous and envious while castigating and attacking those in another faction whose lives are pure and dedicated and whose only crime is intellectual honesty. Most parties mistake the law of the pack for the love of the flock. But the one most bitterly attacked by every sectarian is the one who refuses to be conned or cornered into limiting either his love or activity to any party. Such a person is not so much a threat to any sect as he is a living rebuke to sectarianism itself. He strikes at the mother rather than the brood.

     I can recall, and I do with a sense of abiding shame and deep penitence, when I was regarded as a factional leader, standing before an audience and naming and accusing brethren whom I had never met and whose writings I had never even critically examined. I operated purely upon hearsay and most of it from those as biased and prejudiced as myself. Such boorish and ignorant public behavior was regarded as being like Paul, who named Alexander the coppersmith and Zenas the lawyer. It was certainly not like the words of the apostle to "be generous one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you." What an assignment!

     I wish I could excuse such an uncharitable attitude upon the basis of my youth and immaturity at the time, and no doubt these played a part in it, for young men like to play to the grandstand. But it was also evil and vicious, and it was contrary to the spirit and instruction of the Lord of life. When one treats God's other children worse than he treats heathen, and is more polite to pagans than to saints, Satan is operating the switchboard on his brain cells and he has his mental wires crossed.

     I thank God for his deliverance, and many as the things are which I must yet conquer, I praise him that I am free from having to sit up nights and rack my feeble brain contriving arguments with which to blast other brethren in some other faction. It is a real blessing to be able to fight the devil without first withdrawing from everyone else in the same fight.

     Satan never did a better job for populating hell than when he convinced men that compassion is compromise, fellowship is failure, and walking in love is weakness in the Spirit. I am resolved not to be hoodwinked into hostility, or harassed into hatred. I shall not dissolve the ties of brotherhood in factional gall.