Time for Change

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     I suspect the hardest thing for most of us to do is to change. It is easier to stay in a rut than to get out of it. When I was a "boy preacher" in North Missouri there were no hard-surfaced roads. The soil was gumbo, which meant that it literally rolled up in the wheels of a Model-T Ford, until you had to stop periodically and dig it out with a spade, or it would make progress impossible. When a heavy rain came, or the spring thaw began, no one even thought of going to town until after the mail carrier had made his run and cut a rut. You could then get in that rut and go to town almost without steering. The only thing that took your mind off your grocery list was the need for constant prayer that you'd not meet some "eager beaver" who didn't know enough to stay home until the weather cleared up.

     I remember one "character" whom I knew as a lad. One reason I recall him so vividly is that he scared the living daylights out of us. He was a big red-faced, raw-boned country type with a black handlebar moustache. We didn't have policemen with which to threaten the children in those days so they threatened that he would get us if we didn't watch out. We watched out! He was a tyrant to his family. He browbeat his haggard and bedraggled looking wife who had long since reached the conclusion that resistance was impossible.

     His son ran away from home at an early age. The two daughters eloped and married when each was barely sixteen. Once, when the schoolteacher could no longer bear the thought of brutality toward the family, he risked going to the man's home to talk with him about changing his attitude. He got nowhere. He reported that the man said, "I don't want to change. I intend to have my way and go on just like I am until I die. You live like you want to live and I will do the same." He did just that! One morning when he did not come in for breakfast his wife went to look for him. She found him slumped into a heap at the back of the barn. His nerveless fingers still gripped the handle of the revolver with which he had blown out his brains. He committed suicide rather than make a change.

     If it is hard for an individual to alter his course, it is even more difficult for an institution to do so. Traditions grow up which throttle it. Men become entrenched in power. They feel that they are indispensable. Influence blocs, chiefly concerned with monetary support, develop and successfully resent all reformation. If an intrepid crusader arises, he is quickly squelched. He is branded as a liberal, identified with all kinds of ideas which have "shock value" to keep the manipulated masses from ever reading what he is really saying. Party hacks take the platform to assail him from the safety of a rostrum to which he has no access, and thus assure that no original thinking is ever brought to bear upon the sect.

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     Few of my readers within the so-called "restoration movement" would deny the validity of what I say when applied to what they quaintly refer to as "the sectarian world." They know these charges are true when applied to Roman Catholics, Baptists, and Methodists. They deplore the fact that these structural organizations cannot be altered to become like "the Lord's church," a term they love to chew on like bubble-gum, and which they fondly apply only to themselves. But they bitterly resent any person who dares to imply they are equally guilty, and in dire need of making radical changes to become what Jesus intended for His spiritual body to really be.

     I not only intend to imply that. I want to openly, frankly and candidly say it! We may even be the worst offenders. A non-sectarian sect is often the worst in the litter. We took a noble concept, enunciated by brilliant, peace-loving men, mostly Presbyterians, and we have mauled and hammered it into a conglomerate of narrow, intolerant factions, all of which we lump together in The System which we fondly call the "Church of Christ." Not one of these parties rallying around its tribal standard is the body of Christ, and all of them put together do not constitute that body in its fulness. There are members of the body in all of them, for which I praise God. I also praise God that there are members of the body who are in none of them.

     I no longer confuse The System which we have envolved with that marvelous spiritual organism which He created and for which the Son shed His blood. Each of our parties is composed of those who elevate some concept of truth above relationship with Him who is the Truth. Each faction has argued, debated and emphasized some aspect, opinion or deduction, into such prominence, that it has become the party totem, and the spiritual integrity of men is judged by their willingness to bow the knee to the decisions and delineations of the factional "powers that be." Each party has its own "somewhats" and these call the shots, determine the policy, and ruin those who will not "play ball." There is really no exception, because this is the fruit of the party spirit, and all parties are created by that spirit.

     This is not to say that every faction in "the restoration movement" operates in the same fashion. In some parties the leadership is blunt, brutal and arrogant, exercising dominion through blatant threat and innuendo. In other factions the leadership is smooth, suave and political, manipulating the masses by cleverness and sweetness. The net result is the same. The party is resistant to change. It is under the domination of men who can pull the strings and get anything they want. Under a false facade of "local autonomy" the non-instrument Churches of Christ are really dominated by powerful leaders who have been elevated into prominence by being directors of all kinds of related institutions. Our brethren are not a theocracy or a Christocracy. They are governed by editorcracy--rule by editors! They are forced to goosestep to the tune banged out on printing presses in party headquarters, and woe be to him who marches to the sound of another trumpet!

     I trust you will not allow your dander to rise or get in a big dither, and tell me I have done a grave injustice by creating a stereotype. I know there are exceptions to the rule in every one of our two dozen factions. One reason we do not know how many there are is because they have to stay underground. If the party ever gets the idea they are "liberal on fellowship" the roof will fall in on them. There are faculty members in all of the schools who have a vision beyond our narrow pale. There are preachers in many pulpits whose spirits chafe because they must conform to dogmatic and arbitrary elders, some of whom are still living in the nineteenth century milieu.

     I also know there are congregations, God be thanked, which have resolved to be free in Christ Jesus. They can listen to anyone they wish to hear. They can even invite me to come and speak. When they do, some of the "local autonomy

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folk" in other congregations come over and tell them that they are making a cruel mistake, and will end up divided and split to smithereens. They tell them I have divided churches all over the country and have taken a post-graduate course in how to fracture factions. They always end up admitting they have never met me, heard me, or read a thing I have written. But their last preacher warned them against me and told them I had gone off the deep end and would "fellowship anyone." Some of our preaching brethren cannot be trusted to report correctly the views of those with whom they differ. You have to take what they say with a twenty-five pound block of salt. A grain of salt won't do.

     There is nothing that hurts a partisan preacher more than to have someone else invade his private bailiwick, but there are more groups of brethren all of the time who are shaking off the yoke which neither they nor their fathers have been able to bear. There are still thousands of places playing in their own backyards, and kicking up dust in their own corrals, who could not even call upon a brother to lead songs or pray to God until he first went through the party customs and immigration service and received clearance to proceed. A lot of elders scrutinize your mental baggage pretty carefully to see that you've not brought along any original thinking to be used on your pilgrimage among them. Original thinking is a dangerous weapon to the party spirit. And a lot of elders think they are watching the sheep when they are merely guarding the sacred cows!

     All of this boils down to the fact that reformers are in for "a heap of trouble." The situation, however, is no worse among us than it is in other segments of the religious complex. The reason is apparent. The hard core institutional status quo always results from the same spirit. What the members of the institution designate it does not change its origin or nature. And the defenders of the party seldom acknowledge they were wrong in launching it and never reverse their course. Thus division is sanctified, hostility is justified, and the faction becomes petrified.

     It would seem that attempts at reformation are useless and wholly wasted. This is not true. Reformation must continue, not because ponderous institutions can be changed in a lifetime, but because there are always persons in every one of them who love truth more than party shibboleths and who will catch the vision and continue the task. I was caught up in the party spirit. I was a debater for and defender of tests of fellowship which were artificially contrived to give the party being. I was wrong. It was sinful. I am sorry!

     I changed. If I learn other truths I will change again. All growth involves change. You cannot learn truths you did not know without growing in grace and knowledge and you cannot grow without changing. I have a real feeling that those of us who are heirs of what we fondly regard as "the restoration movement" need to make some real changes if we expect to survive and have any impact at all upon this intellectual age. God has not promised to keep enough people ignorant so we can "maintain our numbers."

     The fact is that every segment among us is losing its young people who are fleeing from the party image in droves. The ones who get fed up are not the careless and indifferent, but the more brilliant and perceptive. Bringing in a new professor to "parrot the party line" will not hold them. They have outgrown that kind of thing, and they do not forsake Christ. They simply resolve no longer to be confined in structures erected by men. They are all for the faith of the fathers but not too hep on the fathers of the faith. They seek to walk in the steps of the Master and are more open to the Spirit. I hold that our real hope lies with these young people who love truth more than tradition, and revere integrity more than factional fidelity.

     1. We must change our vocabulary. Alexander Campbell knew this. He placed it at the very top of his list of goals for reformation. It is not enough to speak

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where the Bible speaks. We must also speak as the Bible speaks. We must make a distinction between the gospel which is a message to be proclaimed to an alien world, and the apostles' doctrine which is a course of instruction for those who have responded to the gospel, and thus enrolled in the school of Christ. The gospel is to be announced to every creature. The doctrine is to be explained and expounded to those creatures who have "obeyed the gospel." We are brought into the fellowship of the Father and Son through the gospel. In that fellowship we grow in grace and knowledge of the truth as we study and learn. But we do not grow up overnight, either in the fleshly or the spiritual realm. Fellowship is the fruit of faith, growth is gradual transformation in the realm of that faith. Fellowship can never be based on conformity in knowledge, and can only result from faith in and surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord.

     We must distinguish between the new covenant written on the heart by the Holy Spirit, and the new covenant scriptures written with pen and ink by apostles and prophets. As God looks at it, and as we ought to look at it, the new testament does not contain twenty-seven books at all. The new testament which the apostles ministered was not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on fleshly tablets of the heart" (2 Corinthians 3:3-6). The "books" are not a part of the new covenant. They are love letters addressed to individuals and groups of individuals, all of whom were already in covenant relationship. They do not constitute a written code, but are directives and guidelines. Our principle of action is love, not law. We are not under law, but under grace!

     2. We must change our view as to the utility of so-called church buildings or religious structures. The primitive saints had no place uniquely dedicated to the carrying on of religious exercises. They would never have thought of erecting such a building in which to preach the gospel and try to convert the pagan world. They knew the difference between going into all of the world and trying to talk part of the world into coming to them. There is no sin in a congregation owning a house in which to gather if that congregation has a proper view of its use. There is no sin in not owning such property either, and the idea that a group can never really be "a church" until it appoints trustees and goes in debt for "property of its own" is a little bit silly.

     Meetinghouses are to be drill-grounds for the soldiers of Christ, not a battlefield on which to meet the enemy. They are to be arsenals to which we come and replenish our ammunition when we have expended all of our available firepower against the enemy. The way in which most people fight the devil a box of spiritual cartridges will last a lifetime. Meetinghouses are to be development areas for the runners in the race and not the arena in which the race is run. The arena is the world and the spectators are not the other saints but the pagans. The Christians are not in the grandstand but on the track.

     Such structures are filling stations where we come to get our batteries charged and our starters tuned up. They are places where we can get our tanks filled, although most of them have only "regular" and you cannot get a shot of high octane. You will be lucky in some places if there is no water in the regular. It is hard to put the "Go" in gospel when you are burning sermon-outline kerosene.

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     Our meetinghouses are company mess-halls. Here the troops gather to sit down at the table and eat and drink in memory of the Captain of our salvation. The early saints met to pray and the building was shaken. They came together to recount their victories through the Spirit and the Roman Empire was shaken. We need more meetings in which encounters may be recalled and gains consolidated. No army can ever be made an efficient fighting force by listening to weekly lectures of a lieutenant. We have confused training the force with entertaining the troops. Putting on a show at headquarters with singing and old jokes interspersed with sundry admonitions is a good way for us to become weaklings.

     3. We must revise our thinking about ministry. Every child of God is a priest. Every disciple of Christ is a minister. This is the purpose of God. It deserves more than sickly acquiescence and pallid lipservice. To regard one man in the congregation as the minister is to discourage every other man from thinking of himself as a minister. If we are going to place the name of the ministers on the sign in front of the building, we ought to inscribe the whole congregational roster on it. For years we have been projecting ideas we never intend to implement. We have been espousing causes we never plan to launch. One who claims to believe in the ministry of all the saints ought to insist that he be given no special prominence. If every Christian is a minister there will be no need of getting new letterheads every time a preacher is sent packing and a new one moves in. That will help a little in these days of paper shortage. The fact is that a lot of brethren actually believe in a special clergy system. They want to be clergymen and they want to think of the other saints as their "laymen."

     When we talk of ministry, we should include every function of every member of the body. Visiting the sick, caring for orphans, mowing the lawn, sweeping the floor, repairing the roof, singing, praying, giving to relieve needs, baking cookies to take to the children's home--all of these are ministry and those who do them are all ministers. Whatever is done in word or deed in the name of Jesus Christ to the glory of the Father is ministry. Please put the emphasis on that whatever! This means there are "women ministers" in the church. In fact there are no women in the church who are not ministers.

     What we have come to call "pulpit ministry" in our unscriptural jargon, may be the least effective ministry in this modern age. When I compare a lot of talks I make with the very real service being rendered by others in service stations, hospitals, homes for the aged, and other places, I feel a little ashamed. But I thank God for everyone who in any manner ministers to this ripped-off world in ways that I cannot. The man who delivers groceries may sometimes do more good than the one who delivers sermons. However, all of us must minister in every way we can and allow God to put it all together!

     4. We need to change our thinking on fellowship. This word, which literally means "to share a common life," as it is so aptly rendered in The New English Bible is too majestic and profound to be kicked around as it has been in the two dozen hostile factions of the restoration movement. Fellowship in Christ Jesus is not something we extend or withdraw. It is a state or condition created by the Holy Spirit in which we share through the amazing grace of God.

     It is not to be equated with endorsement. We are in the fellowship with many who think and do things we cannot condone. We also endorse things done by many with whom we are not in the fellowship. But if God and Christ can be in the fellowship with us while we are learning, growing and changing, surely we can be in the fellowship with others caught up in the human predicament, whose ideas and opinions cut across our grain. It all depends upon whether we love our ideas more than we love our brethren. With me it is not a question of whether I shall hold to my opinions

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or my brethren. I intend to hold to both, and I trust my brethren will do the same.

     We are in the fellowship because we are in Christ, not because we are in agreement upon everything. To postulate fellowship upon conformity is to make it impossible for human beings. It is to lay the foundation for division rather than unity. A century of sordid strife should be enough to demonstrate that the prescription for oneness we have advocated was not written by the Great Physician. We have had only one remedy when differences arise and that is debate. We have had only one recourse when debate fails and that is division. But both debate and division are condemned as works of the flesh by the Holy Spirit. After a hundred years of debating we have just as many factions as we have always had. We have never debated a faction out of existence.

     5. We must change our emphasis on the motto we have proclaimed. We borrowed that motto from a philospher who lived centuries ago, but we have battered it into a meaningless mass by our carnal and ungodly wranglings. There is merit in repeating, "In matters of faith, unity; in matters of opinion, liberty; and in all things, charity." The first two have relevance for promoting harmony only when considered in the light of the third. Though I meticulously distinguish between faith and opinion, and have not love, it profits me nothing. Not all things are matters of faith. Not all things are matters of opinion. But all things must be dealt with in love for those who hold them, or this motto is so much poppycock. Not only must I deal with things of faith and opinion in love, but I must also do the same with the earnest attempt of every individual to relate matters to these categories.

     Love will not allow me to impose my concept of faith upon another man's realm of opinion. The moment I attempt to do that there is at least one thing in which love is not my arbiter. I thus change the rules of the game to suit my own thinking. Even in gambling it is not considered fair to load the dice. What this means, of course, is that I must be forbearing with one who does not share my view about some of the distinctions. But I am commanded to do that. I am to be forbearing of others in love. Forbearance simply means to make allowance for another, so making allowance is the way of love. This means I must be tolerant of those who differ with me in opinion, and even as to what is a matter of opinion. Tolerance is not the endorsing of anything that is wrong. It is simply the enduring of one who thinks it is right.

     If I hold the opinion that a thing is a matter of faith, and another holds the opinion that it is a matter of opinion, love will not allow us to divide from each other. If we do we will not divide over a matter of faith, but over our opinion as to whether it is a matter of faith. We must at least remain together until we can both decide into which category it must be placed. If we do so we will never divide, for if we reach agreement we will be in unity. If we never decide we can continue to discuss it and work together until Jesus comes. Then everything will be made plain. But if we are like the unrighteous servant who began to abuse and beat his fellows because his lord delayed his coming, we will have no peace now, and will have none then.

     Our relationship to God is individual. I must determine for myself what is a matter of faith and what is a matter of opinion. I must do this by personal application of my mind and heart to the revelation of God. I cannot surrender my right or freedom to interpret the Bible for myself to any creed, clergy or clique. I am a firm believer in the right of private interpretation of the scripture. If I must answer for my thinking up there I will do it down here. No man or group of men on this earth will formulate my conviction. I will live with my conviction and according to it, and not allow it to be dictated by any party, segment or sect. I intend to be motivated by love for truth as I formulate my way of life under the

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lordship of Jesus, and motivated by love for all others who do the same.

     I have mentioned changes which I consider long overdue in the particular movement of which we are heirs. Will that movement change? Will the splintered, fragmented, ripped-off, non-instrument Church of Christ change? There is no way of changing it as a unit because it is not a unit. Although each of the two-dozen or more parties has a loosely-regarded headquarters--a school, an editorial base, or a propaganda center--there is no national or international headquarters. Praise God for that! The Church of Christ is both congregational and partisan. The only way this modern complexity of factional cells can change is as thoughtful men in each party are changed.

     That is happening! Brethren are being forced to examine anew the dogmatic and authoritarian structures in which they are trapped. Popery always works its own rebuke, whether manifested in a universal pontiff or on a local level by despotic preachers and power-hungry elders. The various parties in the movement have been often dominated by petty tyrants, but these are fast losing control. Perceptive professors in the colleges, promising preachers in the pulpits, and more erudite students are taking a new look at our concoction of "Church of Christism" and they can no longer defend it as the will of God. They know that whether you spell church with a little "C" or a big one, it can be composed of some very unlovable characters.

     It is my own candid opinion that "The Church of Christ" in its present organizational or institutional sense cannot survive. There is no real reason why it should. Each part or faction in it prays for the demise of every other, and it just could be that all of their prayers will be answered. As it exists today, it is an organizational amalgamation of dissident groups which mistook a nineteenth century activity for a first century creation of the Spirit. But the body of Christ will survive. It is eternal and it cannot die as long as the Head is alive. He has already conquered death.

     What will probably happen is that there will be a reformation of the restoration. The values that have been recaptured will be retained. The traditions which have accrued will become less valid and valuable. We will be purged and purified, and more attuned to the needs of this secularistic society with its multitudinous problems. Our brethren have contributed much to the recovery of truth. They have made the world conscious of the divisive nature of creeds. They have caught the view of the proper response to the good news. It is true that succeeding generations have not recognized the value of their heritage and have tended to erode it away, but much will remain that will be helpful in the future.

     The basis of all sectism is fear. As we lose our fear and begin to cross over lines and ignore barriers, we will help to change the minds of men. The contacts will also operate to change our minds. This will be good. Perhaps all of us can some day bring every thought into captivity to Jesus Christ.