With the title of his lecture for today, this
morning, at the 830 hour, four
principles, restoration principles to carry
into the 21st century, I thought,
uh-oh, he's done my session. Now I only have
three, and I didn't, yeah that's right,
the Trinity, and I did not overlap with his
four except maybe, well I
overlapped with two of yours, Leroy, but I
think that what what Leroy said a few
minutes ago earlier this morning, and by the
way, if you're here right now because
you thought Leroy Garrett was speaking three
times, I apologize. The speaker at
this hour was not my first choice, quite
frankly, but I am Doug Foster, the
director of the Center for Restoration Studies,
and will be speaking to you at
this hour, and I'm actually using the title
that I assigned to everybody, but
nobody used, except sort of. Lessons from our
heritage, charting a course for
churches of Christ in the 21st century. I would
like to ask Leroy if he would
open our session with a prayer in just a second.
We may be a minute or so early,
but I wanted to move as quickly as we could at
this hour, so I know a number of
you have obligations at noon, but Leroy if you
would lead us in an opening prayer,
and then we'll begin immediately with the with
my presentation.
Blessed Lord, as we study and share together,
may the word of our lips and the
meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your
sight through Christ our Lord. Amen.
I think all the speakers, because this thing
was here, it is absolutely useless,
but all the speakers felt somewhat compelled to
stand behind the podium. I'm
not going to feel that way. I'm going to walk
around, and the people who are on
the front row may be frayed a little bit, but I
apologize for that. With the
focus on the new millennium that has captured
so many people's imagination
for the last several years, we've seen all
kinds of lectures and classes and
programs that have asked the speaker to make
statements about the past and the
future. A few months ago, several people from
the Stone Campbell movement, that
Stone Campbell dialogue that Mark Toulouse
mentioned on Monday, several were
asked to address the question of what might
have been done differently in the
past, and that past that caused us to be
divided as we suffered those two major
divisions in the last hundred and fifty years.
And plenty of people are
speculating about what the future holds for
churches of Christ and
other parts of the movement. A large part of
this restoration lectureship, obviously
you know, is also geared toward just those very
matters. And even though I
plan these lectures, the topic charting a
course for churches of Christ in the
21st century is not exactly legitimate for a
historian as a historian. Mark
Toulouse mentioned that too. Historians are
supposed to describe and analyze and
interpret what happened in the past to the best
of our abilities. We're to
discern and point to what we think are trends
that seem to be affecting the way
societies and institutions are going, and we
can report on what other people
think is going to happen in the future. But as
historians, predicting the future
is not part of the job description. So what am
I going to do? Historians usually
have a safe place to speak from. I can talk to
you and quote the most outrageous
things that have been said or done on any given
topic, and when somebody gets
that I can say, well I didn't say that. That
was David Lipscomb, or that was Isaac
Garrett, or that was Leroy Garrett. I didn't
say that. I'm just reporting on
what they said. So this morning we could talk
about what other people have said
about our past and future and stay on safe
ground, but we have to go beyond
that today. So I'm moving out of position as a
historian strictly. I'm not a
prognosticator or prophet either, at least not
in the sense of someone who
makes an authoritative prediction about the
future, but I think we are called on
in all of these lectures this week. I think
what we have been called to do
and what we're trying to do and what we're
capable of doing within our human
limitations is to help cast a vision of the way
things might be, of what we are
capable of with God's help and what our own
heritage equips us for. So this
morning I'm going to speak for a few minutes
about some of the key ideals of
our past. Three, and what I see is their
relevance for the church of the 21st
century. And what I say will not be new to you
because some of it you heard just
a little while ago, but I believe these things
to be of the greatest importance
for the future of churches of Christ. Point
number one, the face of unity. The
beginnings of the Stone Campbell movement were
filled with ideas that
today would be labeled ecumenical. Of course
it's nothing new to say in this
room that ours was a Christian unity movement.
However, unlike the modern
ecumenical movement that works through
denominational structures, Stone and the
Campbells and others believed that unity would
come when individual Christians
abandoned denominational loyalties and came
together in every locality to form
a church, little see, of Christ. Each group
would accept all other such groups and
Christian unity would become visible. Now most
Christians in those days, and many
today, believed that since all true Christians
were already truly united in
the mind of God, unity already existed on a
spiritual plane. The spiritual unity
already existed. Of course our early leaders
agreed with this to a certain
extent. Christian unity is of God. It is
something that God creates, not us.
Certainly our early leaders believed they were
true Christians in many
different places in all the denominations. The
problem they had though, I think, with
this spiritual unity idea was that it had
become a justification for
maintaining division. If everybody's already
united in the mind of God anyway,
then we don't need to do anything. And so they
could continue to fight with each
other and say mean things about each other and
maybe even sometimes doubt
whether individuals, certain individuals, or
even denominations were quite right
with God. But the idea was unity is not our
problem. This is the idea that many
people had in those days when Stone and
Campbell began their work. They were not
people mirroring the society. They were voices
crying in the wilderness when
they began talking about Christian unity the
way that they did. Our ideal of
bringing Christians into visible unity was
often breathtaking in its simplicity
and appeal. Who could help but be moved by
passages like what Leroy read this
morning from Thomas Campbell's Declaration and
Address in this passage
that I always love to read to my students. This
is Thomas Campbell. Are we
not all praying for that happy event when there
shall be but one fold and
there is but one shepherd? What? Shall we pray
for a thing and not strive to
obtain it? Not use the necessary means to have
it accomplished? What said the Lord
to Moses upon a piece of conduct somewhat
similar? Why cryest thou unto me?
Speak unto the children of Israel that they go
forward but lift thou up thy
rod and stretch out thy hand. Let the ministers
of Jesus but embrace this
exhortation. Put their hand to the work and
encourage the people to go forward
upon the firm ground of obvious truth to unite
in the bonds of an entire Christian
unity. And who would venture to say that it
would not soon be accomplished? But
the realities of a fallen world soon set in.
Christians in every locality
did not abandon their religious loyalties. They
continued to do what
believers have always done, congregate in
groups with a common heritage, beliefs,
and practices. We did precisely the same thing.
We formed another whole grouping
of churches named or denominated Christian
churches or churches of Christ
and were loyal to the understandings to which
we had come in our struggle to
please God. This was not inherently evil. This
is simply what happens. It is human
reality that will never change. In the 1987
book, Coming Together in Christ,
authors James North and Barry Callan made the
important point that there is
nothing inherently divisive in a group of
Christians following the natural
sociological process of denominating itself.
Quoting from James Earl Massey,
they say this, diversity is not division when
the spirit of relating to those
beyond the group is kept alive. Diversity is
one thing while a spirit of division
is another. Every Christian has a legacy in
every other Christian. We experience
that legacy only as we receive each other and
relate to one another. Would
someone tell that young lady that we're in here
trying to have a lecture? Paul,
Paul is the fatherly person. He won't offend
her. Too often when we talk about
Christian unity, we either use uncritically the
rhetoric of the founding
leaders that often does not recognize this
reality or we fall into unhelpful
anti-ecumenical movement language and everybody
can bash the ecumenical
movement. Neither approach allows us to think
through what Christian unity might
really look like in this flawed world. Maybe we
need to reconceive our
expectations in light of scriptural teaching if
we are to see the face of
unity more clearly. In my own struggle to see
the face of unity, three areas
appear crucial. This is all still under point
one. My students when I used to do
a lot of lecturing, you know, they'd take notes
and they'd say, I couldn't make
sense of your lecture. You said point one here
and point one there and you
had three points over here. Well, there are
three big points. This is under point
one of unity. There are three points under the
big point of unity. Okay, so
you do ABC. And I'm going to cover the mic for
a minute now.
First is the matter of the three crucial areas.
First is the matter of just who is
a Christian. Leroy already mentioned it. Thomas
Campbell defined Christians as
those who claimed the label, this is the
shorthand version, and who showed that
they were Christians by their tempers and
conduct. In other words, they said
they were Christians, they claimed it, and they
showed that they were by the way
they acted and lived. When he said that, the
issue of baptism had not become as
critical as it would. But the scriptures are
clear that not all who claim to be
followers of Christ really are. Certain things
will cut one off from the
communion of the church. If we stick to
scripture, it seems to me, and I've done
several versions of this list, and I've read
through the scriptures of the New
Testament several times, and I've shown it to a
number of people, and it could be
still obviously revised. But I see eight areas
that are clearly
described. Refusal to repent of a personal sin
against a brother or sister
in Matthew 18:17. Gross unrepentant immorality
and greed in 1st
Corinthians 5. A lifestyle of selfishness in 2
Timothy 3. A
refusal to work in 2 Thessalonians 3:6, and 14.
Denial that Christ came in
the flesh, 2 John 10. Trying to be righteous
through one's own efforts,
Galatians 5:4. Blasphemy and denying the coming
resurrection, 1 Timothy 1:20,
and 2 Timothy 2:16, and 18. And 8, a person who
causes division, Titus 3:10.
Now, if you'll notice those things, most of
them have to do with personal morality.
Bad attitudes and the actions that result from
them. And the others seem to
relate directly to the person and work of Jesus
Christ. Now, as has already been
mentioned, as Royce mentioned, there will
always be false prophets according to
Matthew 7, Jesus himself. But Jesus says we'll
know them by their fruits. Fruits
that certainly include those eight items and
are reflected in the works of the
flesh in Galatians 5:19-21. Now, this leads
into the second crucial area, the
way I've been trying to struggle with this face
of unity. And that is the
matter of attitude. And I've come to believe
pretty strongly, and I know that
this can be misunderstood, but I believe very
strongly that unity is essentially
a matter of attitude. And division is
essentially a matter of attitude. And
somebody would say, well, you know, people can
be all over the place and have a
seemingly nice attitude. Well, let me explain
what I mean. The real barriers
that separate Christians are not so much the
organizational or creedal barriers
that we can see. I mean, you can see the signs
on the church. You can see the
creeds, the Methodist discipline, and etc., etc.
I don't think those are really so
much the things that divide us. The real
barriers that separate believers are the
attitudes that lurk beneath the surface.
Distrust, misunderstanding, arrogance,
gossip, smug stereotyping. I think these are
the real hindrances to unity. There
used to be an old, there used to be, I think it
was Kathy Matea. Is anybody in
here a country music fan? There was a song that
she did, All Those Untold
Stories. Of course, it had to do with some
relationship with a man and a woman,
but I listened to the words of those, of that
song several years ago, and it
talks about all those untold stories, all those
silent lies, and the fact that the
misunderstanding and the breakup between, in
this case, a couple was because of
things that were just totally, they didn't
communicate with each other, they
didn't know each other, there were lies and
misunderstandings and stereotypes
about each other and what actions really meant,
and I think a lot of
times because we've been so concerned for the
truth, and that is right and good
and something we have to hold on to, and I'll
say more about that later, but
sometimes we have assumed that someone who has
not arrived at the same place
that we have must be dishonest and essentially
perverted and evil because
they will not see it in that way. Such barriers
will come down only after
Christians are humbled, humbled, only when
Christians are brought to deep personal
conviction that our disunity is not what God
wants, can God recreate us according
to his will. When I talked about that eldership at
Pampa, Texas, at the Church of Christ at Pampa,
Texas, those people, no one could
accuse that leadership group of being in any
shape, form, or fashion, liberal or
progressive, and yet they had a deep conviction
that it was not God's will
that they were divided from other Christians,
other believers. We must
admit that we've participated in the sin of
division, either causing it or
maintaining it, and that's a sin too, it seems
to me. Only by humbling ourselves
before God and each other can he lift us up and
work through us. You know those
passages, humble yourselves in the sight of the
Lord and he'll lift you up, James
4, 10. Let those who think they stand take heed
lest they fall. 1 Corinthians 10:12.
I'm always amazed by that 1 Corinthians passage.
I better keep my
eye on the clock because I'm doing some
ad-libbing here, but I'm always amazed
by that 1 Corinthians 10 passage because you
know what it is? It's a
history lesson. Paul just goes through the
history of the Israelites and he
talks about the problems that they had had and
and he said these things
happened for your instruction. We've got to
know our history, folks. When we don't,
it's really tempting to be arrogant and to
think that we stand, and that's
precisely where the danger comes in. This leads
to the third crucial
consideration about unity. We cannot, we must
not, imply by our insistence on the
essential place of humility that we must move
to a sentimental relativism that
refuses to take God's ideals seriously. A bland
toleration that says I'm okay,
you're okay, is as dangerous and potentially
destructive as a rigid
emphasis on hair-splitting doctrinal precision.
Christians are charged with
being able to articulate their faith, to give
an answer to everyone who asks,
1 Peter 3:15, and so holding strong convictions
and being able to
articulate them is natural and essential for
Christians. Unless we're going to
reject thinking, which I think is possible,
I've seen it both in and out of
the classroom, unless we're going to reject
thinking, articulation of our
beliefs is inevitable. Now we've been very
anti-cretal. We believed creeds were
bad because they were divisive, and yes, when
imposed as tests of faith they can
be in our divisive, but our early leaders were
not opposed to serious
attempts to explain the faith. It's not holding
strong convictions and doing the
hard work of articulating those convictions
carefully that's a barrier
to the Christian unity. The problems come when
human pride sits in and we
conclude that finally we've gotten everything
figured out. When a group or
person insists that their articulation of the
faith is the standard for
certifying the Christianity of all others. Any
attempt to state correct
doctrine that produces Un-Christ-like attitudes
and conduct is a perversion of
true doctrine and a fundamental
misunderstanding of Christianity. Without
the attitude of humility seen in Christ, a
practice or belief cannot be correct.
When in grappling to understand and articulate
specific doctrines, we break
the unity of Christ Church to something that's
fundamentally wrong. We've missed
what Christianity and Christian doctrine is all
about, reconciliation. When in
grappling to understand and articulate specific
doctrines, now what you're
following now I hope that's what we've got to
be doing, when in grappling to
understand and articulate specific doctrines we
come together in love with
other believers, assuming both the sincerity
and the imperfection of all
parties, we will I think begun to have seen the
face of unity. Big point number
two. Face of unity, now the face of restoration.
That's one that Leroy
didn't address directly but it was part of
everything I think that he said.
Restoration used to be a good word among the
heirs of the Stone Campbell
movement and for many it still is. Yet during
the 20th century it got a bad
name in some quarters and even those who still
use it are not always clear about
exactly what it means. Some came to see
restoration as inherently antagonistic
toward unity. Restoration was in essence
legalistic hair-splitting precision.
Those are my words, not the words that have
been would have been used by those
with that idea, but the idea is that getting
everything exactly right in
doctrine and practice, that's restoration. Its
defenders often responded that
unity was about compromise. Settling for the
lowest common denominator is the
basis for fellowship and full recognition. Now
both of those definitions
are stereotypes but the stereotypical
definitions implied you had to make a
choice. You're going to go for unity or you're
going to go for restoration. You
can't have it both. That's the way things were
portrayed very often. Anyone
familiar with our early history knows that the
founding leaders saw
restoration and unity as complementary. When
simple New Testament teachings and
practices were restored as the basis for mutual
recognition and fellowship, then
Christians in every locality would flow
together to form churches of Christ. That
would produce the unity. So restoration would
produce the unity. Denominational
creeds and church structures would simply
vanish. Of course one reason
restoration eventually got a bad name was the
fact that that vision never
happened. The denominational structures and
teachings did not disappear and the
stark reality was that our own movement seemed
to become one more of the
competing religious bodies. Restoration, the
concept of restoration, came under
serious scrutiny among disciples and Christian
churches in this century with
two efforts. One called the Commission on
Restudy that was from 1934-1949 and
then the panel of scholars from 1957-1963. At
the end of that study about a
panel of scholars, an important essay was
published. And in that essay on
restoration, the panel of scholars judged
restoration to be essentially a false
concept, inherently separatist and divisive.
Based on critical
understandings of Scripture and human
knowledge, the group advocated abandonment
of the idea as a goal of the movement. The
panel asserted that their conclusions
were inescapable for modern people and for the
most part the part of the
movement known as Christian, the Christian
Church Disciples of Christ, did go that
route. Restoration is not a good word for most
of the people in the Christian
Church Disciples of Christ. The fact is the
panel of scholars was right about a
lot of things. Quite honestly many in our
movement, though never all, have held the
ahistorical and arrogant idea that in essence
we of all people since the first
century are the ones who truly have understood
Christianity and gotten
things right. Essentially then people must
think like we think and do like we
do to be assured of their salvation. Such an
attitude blinds people to the fact
that context, time, location, culture, shapes
how we see and respond to the
eternal gospel. It blinds, that attitude blinds
us to the fact that human beings
because they are human beings always respond
out of their own situation as
best they can to the unchanging will of God.
The problem with the panel of
scholars report was that their position was
just as arrogant and blind as the
position they were accusing others of holding.
Now with their advanced
understandings and enlightened rejection of the
antiquated notions of the early
leaders, they could embark on a project of
finally getting it all right. They
wanted to drop the word restoration but that
did not solve the problem. Arrogance
and pride are the essence of sin wherever they
are found. But a concern to
be as close to what God would have us be is
certainly not simple and does not
have to, in fact must not, result in an
attitude of arrogance and superiority.
And I'll say it again. I said this in the
restoration section. I'll say it now. I'm
sorry in the unity section. I'll say it now in
the restoration section. Any
attempt to restore doctrine and practice that
results in Un-Christ-like attitudes
is a perversion of true doctrine and a
fundamental misunderstanding of
Christianity. So what are we going to do with
the word restoration? Well the fact
is we've always had a lot of different
understandings of precisely what
restoration means. To Alexander Campbell it
meant reinstituting what he called
the ancient order of things, the way Christians
in the ancient church
worshiped and taught and organized their
congregations. To Walter Scott it meant
bringing back the ancient gospel, summarizing
the five-finger exercise
that that Leroy is talking about a few minutes
ago, faith, repentance, baptism,
remission of sins, and gift of the Holy Spirit.
To Barton W. Stone, restoration
meant restoring the spiritual life of the early
church, reliance on God's
Spirit to transform disciples into the image of
Christ. Now these are not
inherently antagonistic to each other, but they
did indicate
different emphases. Now it's been interesting
to me ever since Leroy's
book came out, the Stone Campbell movement
increasingly in scholarly circles
especially, that label, Stone Campbell
movement, has been replacing restoration
movement in parts of our churches where it had
been more common. Restoration
movement had been the most common term, and
some see this I think as a move away
from something essential in our heritage, that
we're sort of abandoning this. I
don't think so. I think the term Stone Campbell
movement is merely an attempt
to find a neutral, historically specific term
that all parties can use to
identify the movement. I don't have any problem
with that. I do think however
that restoration is an essential principle that
we have to hold on to, but
the way to make sure the concept of restoration
is kept alive is to focus on
what it ought to mean in light of the
Scriptures. When I look at the
Scriptures and I look at words and concepts
that fit this notion of
restoration, I see essentially God's work of
bringing his creation back into a
right relationship with himself, a relationship
that was broken by human
choice, human activity. Now I'll just save
these for the tape. Deuteronomy 33,
Jeremiah 16:15, Ephesians 1:4, and 2, I'm
sorry, Ephesians 1 and 4, 2 Timothy 1:9,
Acts 3:21. In all these passages you see
restoration is the act of God. It's
something that God does. It's not a chance
occurrence nor one of human
initiative. How many of you, I don't know if
this is even talked about much
anymore in sermons, but I grew up in North
Alabama and I often, or at least
from time to time, heard sermons with this kind
of an illustration about what
restoration was. It would be like finding a
piece of broken furniture in an attic.
So by following meticulously, if you can find
the original plans for that chair
or that table, by following meticulously the
original plans for the chair, the
finder can restore it to exactly what it was
when it was first made. Now several
things bother me about this illustration. It
implies that the person who finds the
plans can read and understand and carry them
out perfectly through sheer human
will and ingenuity. I'll tell you folks, if I
found some plans to an old chair and
tried to restore it, it would be nothing like
it was supposed to be. Furthermore,
old plans often specify materials that are no
longer available. They sometimes
depict an item that is obsolete or that has
been so refined and advanced in
design that remaking the item as described
would mean moving backward to
something less capable of performing the
intended function. But the Bible does not
work that way. What the Bible depicts is never
unavailable or obsolete because it
depicts the love of a God who is unchanging and
absolute. If we want to
pursue the image of broken furniture in a more
scriptural vein, maybe we can do
it this way. God's the one who made the chair.
We're the ones who broke it. We're
the ones who read the plans wrongly. We're the
ones who think we can get
everything right and in that very attitude get
everything wrong. Yet we are
not helpless. We have another paradox here it
seems to me. I've done some
thinking and writing about paradoxes with the
unity question but I think
there's a unity is a given but there's
something that we've got to maintain.
There's another paradox here. On one hand we
are imperfect, fallible, broken. We can
do nothing of ourselves. God is in charge,
all-powerful, sovereign. Our only hope is
full submission to God. Yet we are responsible
for our actions. We are
commanded to be perfect even as our Father in
Heaven is perfect. Even when we
know we're not perfect and can never be perfect.
There is precisely, I believe,
where restoration comes in. God has done what
we could not do. Graciously, lovingly,
freely, even when we seemed to hate him. God
has restored us to a right
relationship with him through the death of his
Son Jesus Christ. Restoration is
God's finished business and our never-ending
quest. Restoration is not
primarily our getting things right. It's about
God making things right. And so
unity and restoration are key components of our
heritage that can and must help
us chart a course for the 21st century churches
of Christ. But there are ways
that we must see those concepts. I think that
they're more scriptural and more
cognizant of reality than perhaps we've been in
the past.
I think to help us be shaped in this new era.
And that's one of Leroy's also, the
idea of freedom. About 21 years ago, the Forest
F. Reed lectures at the Disciples
of Christ Historical Society had a wonderful
scholar, and I think Leroy
knew Ronald Osborne. Ronald Osborne spoke for
those Reed lectures. And that
year he made the point that freedom was a major
theme running through the entire
history of the Stone Campbell movement. And he
says that it was at least as
important as the traditionally identified
themes of restoration and
unity. From the beginning, Osborne insisted,
the commitment of heart and
mind was given to freedom, unity, and
restoration held together in varying and
sometimes unstable equilibrium. Titling his
lectures in the book that resulted
from the experiment in liberty, another word
for freedom, Osborne asserted
that freedom had always been a dominant strain
in the self-consciousness of the
Stone Campbell movement from the very earliest
days to the present in all
parts of the movement. I don't know how many of
you have read a wonderful book
if you want to, if you're taking notes about
books to read, I would recommend
that you read it's been out for several years
now, but Nathan Hatch, The
Democratization of American Christianity. Now
Hatch is an American religion
scholar, but he talks a good bit about our
folks, but he puts them into a
larger context. Goodness gracious, what was the
key word in American society
after the Revolution in that early national
period? Liberty! Freedom! And the
way that we used it and the way that other
religious groups used it, some of
which were connected loosely with us and some
not, this is something that is, it's
almost a truism. Yes, certainly. Freedom was a
part of the way we breathed and
lived and thought about things. It's who we
were as Americans. It's a dominant
strain, yes, not only in our movement but in a
number of others and in the American
ethos. And Osborne says, as part of the Stone
Campbell movement, it was the
routes that were taken to under, that were
taken to guarantee or bring
freedom to expression had changed dramatically
through the years. He
actually sees a different way of doing it. He
proceeded to discuss in three
lectures, and this is Ronald Osborne, he's part
of the disciples ring of the
movement, he proceeded to discuss in three
lectures the ideal of freedom seen
in the early pioneers, how it's been manifested
in our politics, evangelism,
art, education, theology, and churches.
Fascinating material. He focused
especially on what is today the Christian
church disciples of Christ.
Osborne's perception was of a development of
the idea of freedom, a
maturing from the sometimes rough and tumble,
knock everything down attitudes
of the early days to what he saw as a higher
level of organizational
maturity, of at least his part of the movement.
His ideas, I would say, clearly
reflect modern liberal understandings. Now more
recently in that book that I
held up yesterday when Paul Blowers was here,
Founding Vocation and Future
Vision, Richard Hughes has spoken about the
ideal of freedom in a couple of
essays that were published in that book. The
ideal of freedom, Richard says, is
inextricably linked to and defining of all the
movements other ideals. He says
it's not just one more ideal, so you have two
or three or four or five, but I mean
he says it's the central ideal and everything
else sort of radiates from
that idea of freedom. He speaks of the founding
vocation of churches of Christ
being focused on freeing the minds of
Christians from the restraints placed on
them by restrictive and divisive creeds and
denominational hierarchies, so that
they might engage in an unbounded search for
religious truth. Again, freedom was
certainly a part of the movement's founding
impulse and Richard goes on to
say that what his view of things were quite the
opposite of Ronald Osborne.
Ronald Osborne sees freedom as developing in
different ways and eventually
resulting in the formation of the structure of
the Christian Church
disciples of Christ. Richard sees freedom as
being an ideal that was sort of
captured at the very beginning of the movement,
but then we sort of lost it and
so instead of people being able to go to the
scriptures and read and understand
and carry out things for themselves, we began
to impose, sometimes formally,
sometimes less, most of the time less formally,
all the restrictions that would
cause people who didn't come out with the same
conclusions to be ostracized
and punished in various types of ways. Well,
here's my problem with both of
those. We need to remember that the ideal of
freedom as it was constructed by early
leaders had a strong dose of radical
individualism. Each individual should be
free to arrive at truth by his or her own
ingenuity and it was also tinged
pretty strongly, in their exceptions, but it
was tinged pretty strongly with an
anti-historical attitude that poo-pooed the
idea that the past was important or
had much at all to teach us of value. That's
not true of some of the major
leaders like Alexander Campbell, but that was a
strong anti-historical tinge to
all of this. While some of our early leaders
certainly had a sense of the
tremendous gap between God and humankind, God
is God and we are not, and had a
willingness to submit their lives fully to the
Almighty's will. The prevailing
attitude among them was certainly not about
human weakness. To the
contrary, free from the restraints of the past,
all those denominational creeds and
hierarchies and structures, they believed that
there was no truth that through the
careful use of human reason could not be
discovered or recovered. This was the
case from the very beginning of our movement.
Campbell's ancient order of
things series in the Christian Baptist, for
example, was not conceived of as an
interminable search. There was every
expectation that through the inductive
method of examining Scripture, the discovery of
truth defining God's true
intentions for our belief and practice would be
the result. They were filled with
optimism and excitement about the project of
shuffling off the old
restraints and recovering or rediscovering
God's truth. That the
ordinary individual could not do so was one of
the old ideas that they so
gleefully renounced. No one proposed to
encompass the mind of God, but they did
propose that people use the God-given reason
and discern the truth or parts
of the truth that God had provided for them. It
may be that what we originally
understood as freedom, freedom from someone
else telling us what to believe
and practice, may have been merely shifting
from one kind of oppressive
bondage to another. Now listen to me on this.
To turn from what some might have
characterized as mind control by the creeds and
the clergy and instead place
the burden on the shoulders of every human
being to get everything right
through their sheer human will and reason
doesn't seem to me to be freedom
at all. Both of these choices can and do ignore
one of the most foundational
truths of the Christian religion. True freedom
is in surrendering. It is in
acknowledging our limitations in every aspect
of our lives where God is the
Almighty Sovereign of the universe and expected
to be active in the lives of
his followers, where we are committed to the
pursuit of truth because we realize
our understandings are never perfect and our
lives are not of themselves
righteous. Where we realize that the very
acknowledgement of these things is at
the heart of the gospel and where we fall
before God along with all his
people to worship and follow him to the full
extent of the limited abilities he
has given us. I guess it's stating the obvious
to say that this vision for the
future of churches of Christ is not fully
shared by all members. We have
pushed to the limits and almost unbounded
confidence in the potential of
human reason. The realization of such a vision
for the future of churches of
Christ will come not by recreating an early
uncorrupted version of the
movement's founding vocation. Some people used
to talk about, I think in derision,
restoring the restoration in the sense of
restoring something that was done in
the early 19th century. But that freedom is not
going to come. That vision for the
future of churches of Christ is not going to
come by trying to recreate
something 200 years ago, but by freeing the
historical Stone Campbell movement
to proclaim the gospel on the basis of a very
different set of understandings
about things. By freeing I do not mean any sort
of cutting loose from a deep
historical sense of historical connectedness.
Goodness gracious. I have
to convince my undergraduate students every
time at the beginning of the
semester when they come to restoration history
class that it's worth doing. I
actually, I've got at least a couple of former
students in that class here, but
actually turn the tables on them. I'm the
deacon back at their home church who
says you don't need to be studying that. You
get out of that class and take a
Bible class. We don't need to know what
Campbell said. I make them defend taking
the class to me. That's not easy to do because
I'm really mean and hard-nosed.
So I don't mean cutting loose from a deep sense
of historical connectedness.
And many writers in the last few years have
emphasized how essential and
historical consciousness is to be freed from
one's own narrow
particularity. From the tyranny of the
ignorance of how we have been shaped by
a long sequence of people and ideas and events.
And I do not mean by freeing us
simply to develop more appropriate, more mature
understandings in some liberal
sense. Now you understand what I mean by
liberal. This almost unbounded optimism
about human ability and human reason that
things are always getting better
and better and better. Inevitably. What I mean
is that we must be freed to
understand that no human system of
understanding can be made
universally applicable. Even a human system of
understanding God in
Scripture. For those who hold a modern liberal
assumption such a statement
appears to be the ultimate betrayal. It appears
to be a retreat to pure
relativism. It appears to say that there are no
truths that can be held as
absolute and therefore binding on all people
and that's not true. If we
continue however to operate out of modern
assumptions we're going to be
faced with the inescapable conflict between the
almost unbounded high view
of human ability that's part of modern thought
and the biblical message that
humans are flawed and sinful and have their
only hope in acknowledging that
brokenness in humble submission to God's will.
When we allow ourselves to move
away from the modern liberal worldview to one
that is chastened regarding human
ability God can truly make freedom a reality.
Not all up to us. For then we will have
nothing at stake. The arrogance of modern
thought is not in keeping with the
gospel of Jesus Christ. The kind of
individualism that has been so
characteristic of Western society keeps the
church from being what God intended
it. I wish we had a lot more time to talk about
that individual stuff.
Individualism and autonomy and all that kind of
thing that's not what the Bible
teaches. It teaches community. If you heard
Mike Cope last night that's what
the Bible teaches and the arrogance of modern
thought of liberal thought is
antagonistic toward that. The main problem with
modern liberal attitudes
is that they are at their very root centered on
humankind. Humankind is the
starting point of reality. Human reason
determines all of it is real and true
including God. Churches of Christ in the 21st
century faced the
task of charting a course between the extremes
of liberalism that destroyed
the uniqueness of Christianity and accommodates
itself to the world. That's
one extreme and an approach to the Bible in the
church that shouts we're the only
ones right to an unimpressed world. For us to
appropriate today the ideal of
freedom from our heritage I believe we must
place the first emphasis on
submission to the Almighty. We acknowledge
God's sovereignty but we
also respond in gratefulness with what God has
given us and do our best. There's
the paradox again. Several years ago Tony
Donovan a friend of mine at Lexington
Theological Seminary wrote an article I think
it actually grew out of some of
the work he had done in his graduate work. It
showed how the foundational
ideals of the movement fit together in a
progression. For at least Alexander
Campbell. Campbell saw this sort of progression.
Here in America you have
freedom for the first time from some sort of
outside pressure some sort of
state church some sort of imposed belief and
practice and so in America for the
1st time at least since early centuries you
could restore the ancient
gospel and the ancient order of things and so
that freedom led to the ability
to restore the ancient gospel in the ancient
order. The restoration of the
ancient gospel in order would lead to the unity
of all Christians. The unity
of all Christians would lead to the conversion
of the world and the
conversion of the world would bring in the
Millennium. This is a clear
progression at least in Alexander Campbell's
thought. Very optimistic about
what God had prepared this land for. This is
the only land in the whole world that
was uncorrupted and uninhabited. They didn't
count the Native Americans but
anyway this is the place where God had prepared
for this to be done and this is
not unique to Campbell. It's a very strongly
Puritan idea as well. Well
because of this freedom the ancient gospel and
order of things could be
restored and the restoration of primitive
Christianity would lead to the
unity of all Christians as they saw and
understood the way things
were meant to be. The unity of Christians would
result in the conversion of the
world which would usher in the Millennium where
the principles of Christ would
pervade the world. Well I don't see that kind
of optimistic scenario taking place
at least not in the way that Campbell
envisioned it. Yet those ideals of
freedom, restoration, unity, conversion, and
the reign of Christ are as essential
to Christ's Church today as they were 200 or
2,000 years ago. May we in the Stone
Campbell churches and in the churches of Christ
with the help of God appropriate
these ideals to extend his kingdom. Thank you.
They worshiped in the temple. They were
followers of the law. They sold all things and
had all things come.
There were no Gentiles in that church. I think
it was a bad concept to restore. I think what
we want to do is unify two distinct bodies as
Paul was doing in all his reigns, the Jewish
Christians and the Gentile Christians.
About his appeal, I believe that should be our
appeal today. The unity, not restoration.
Well, but I would say again that the concept of
restoration in the Bible is real. It is there.
It is not the concept that you just
articulated, but we've got to
reappropriate the idea of restoration as it is
expressed in the Bible it seems to me. I think
that is a strong part of our heritage and the
fact of the matter is that there were people in
our heritage that saw that.
Doug, I studied under Ronald Wilde for his
butler several years ago and got the impression
then that he was not disrespectful,
disinterested really in the past and the
contemporary thing.
Do you see this movement of disinterest in the
past as a barrier to really unity between
disciples, Christian church and our brethren?
Well, yes. A disinterest in or ignorance of the
past is at the very heart of the inability of
people to understand fully what's going on, who
they are or who anybody else is.
And the development of a historical
consciousness, that is the realization that we
have a context and that we have a situation
that has brought us to where we are and that
everybody else does as well, is essential for
any kind of efforts I feel at understanding unity
and understanding the biblical concepts of the
church, etc, etc. Here's the situation, someone
asked me earlier about disciples, were
disciples very much interested in our history
and I said about as much as we are.
The fact of the matter is there are more people
from churches of Christ who use the disciples
of Christ historical society than from any of
the three branches.
That's right. They finally, they used to have
just an open policy, anybody who walked in
could use their facilities, but so many folks
from churches of Christ were using it and of
course their support came from disciples as far
as any actual giving
that they finally had to put in a user fee or
ask people to become a member of the society
for people to use it. It's probably just
because where I am, that is a church historian
with contact with a lot of students through the
last few years,
but I get more invitations to come and do
historical seminars in churches than I can
accept, but I suspect that that's not an
indication of necessarily the widest interest
in this, but it's absolutely essential.
Again, look at 1 Corinthians 10, if there's any
lesson in 1 Corinthians 10, you better know
your history or you're going to be in danger of
a big fall. One more question, David?
I wonder how that works out when we come to
situations of contentious difference and for
whatever reason, legitimately or
illegitimately, we are not able to reconcile
our differences.
How does a concept like you're talking about
work out differently in terms of our fellowship
with those beyond our stone temple? How does
that kind of an attitude work out differently
than the attitude which has become, which has
been a part of our movement, which has more
confidence in our ability to work things out?
The sense of human weakness almost puts us in
an apologetic mode to those outside our
fellowship for whatever reason we can't work
out differently.
I think that may be that apologetic mode in the
sense of actually saying, well, we're sorry, we
used to think we were right, but we're not
right anymore.
A lot of folks, quite frankly, I've talked to a
number of them, who at one point in the past
were convinced to come out of another religious
body into churches of Christ because of a very
sharply articulated idea that you're not a
Christian there and this is the only place you
can be, who are now feeling very betrayed by
speeches such as this or what Leroy says.
You mean I was okay then? Well, that gets into
a lot of complex things, a lot of very complex
things, and this is not an easy thing at all.
The only thing that I can say is that, as I
mentioned earlier in the speech quoting from
that book coming together in Christ, it is not
inherently evil that people do not work and
worship totally in one place together.
And that there are enough differences among
Christians that simply because of the way
people have been formed, because of the context
of which they are and the convictions that they
have, there are situations that they simply
cannot be together.
I remember Isaac Erich talking about the
instrumental music question back in the 1800s,
and Isaac Erich, among our folks, at least for
a long time, got sort of a black eye as being
the great liberal.
Well, goodness gracious alive, Isaac Erich was
a fundamentalist conservative if you look at
his positions in many cases.
He didn't think instrumental music was
inherently evil or good.
He personally preferred a cappella music, but
he didn't think it was a matter of division.
And he counseled some churches, if it gets to
the point where there are people who cannot
worship together, an instrument is being
introduced or something and they cannot worship
with that, there will have to be a separation.
But you must continue to do everything you can
do together without violating your conscience.
This is a principle that's been articulated in
more than one place.
Believers in Christ should do together
everything that they can together without
violating their conscience.
And that may be a sort of a stopgap measure,
but it seems to me that I would, for example,
like to have situations in local congregations,
and it's got to happen there, I think.
We can all come from Nevada or Colorado or New
Mexico or Florida here and have this kind of forum.
But when you go back to your local
congregation, it seems to me that that's where
things have to really happen.
Invite people who are of other religious bodies
or within the Stone Campbell movement or
outside to come together with the understanding
that we want to get to know each other better.
And we want to be frank about what we can't go
along with or what you can't go along with.
But we want to be loving and charitable and
understand each other and begin the
relationship that will allow us to do
everything together that we can do together
without violating our conscience.
I've known it to happen in several places where
a group, a church would ask a neighboring
church to just come have a meal with them and
then have a period of time to sort of ask questions.
I've been asked to go to a number of churches
outside the Stone Campbell movement just as a
Sunday school class teacher and just sort of
explain who churches of Christ are.
And that kind of understanding and relationship
building, it seems to me, is a practical
stopgap measure.
Quite frankly, well, you know, I said at the
very end, I don't see that progression, that
optimistic progression happening.
I don't think it's human reality. So we have to
do what we can.
And that's one thing I think we can do without
giving up our beliefs and practices or
violating our conscience is we've got to do
something together.
One last comment or question and then we'll go
to lunch.
We have to give up ego.
That's right. Arrogance and pride is the core sin.
We've got to give up ego, the idea that we're
right, we're wrong.
We've got to come back to the point of focus on
Christ, Christ only, and let Him lead us toward
what we need to do.
And I wish, again, we'd had more time to talk
about community, because this individualistic
thing of everybody going to the Bible and
coming up with their own conclusions,
I don't think is the concept that is meant to
be for Christians.
That's an American concept. And you saw, you
see and saw and do see where it got us into.
Let's close with prayer.
Thank you, Father, for bringing us together.
Thank you for giving us this beautiful day and
a refreshing cool.
Be with us as we continue through the rest of
this day.
We ask you, Father, to bless Howell Runkle this
afternoon at his lecture at three thirty.
Bless each person who's come and been part of
these lectures these three days and as we
continue this afternoon to close.
Be with us now as we go to eat, in Christ's
name. Amen.