KEEPING ABREAST: REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND MATERIALS RELATING TO THE CHANGE MOVEMENT


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Ideas are spread by word of mouth or by print or electronic media. Those determined to change churches of Christ into a denomination of their own liking are issuing a steady stream of books promoting their views. Many immature and unsuspecting souls will be influenced by them. The author of the following reviews has assumed the unpleasant task of reading and evaluating all the books being circulated by promoters of change. He also makes a point of reading, reviewing and recommending those books and tracts that do a good job of responding to the agents of change and promoting the Master's message. Hopefully this page will be a useful resource for those desiring helpful information on this troublesome movement.
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To share your ideas, to ask additional questions or to recommend other books for review, email the author @ JOHNWADDEY@aol.com.
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CHANGE AGENTS AND ALEXANDER CAMPBELL'S LUNENBURG LETTERS

In every generation those who have grown weary of walking the old paths of New Testament Christianity have sought to justify their departure therefrom by citing correspondence of Alexander Campbell called the Lunenburg Letters. On July 8, 1837 A Christian lady from Lunenburg, VA wrote Alexander Campbell the following lines:

"Dear Bro. Campbell: I was much surprised today, while reading the Harbinger, to see that you recognize the Protestant parties as Christians. You say, you ‘find in all Protestant parties Christians.'...Will you be so good as to let me know how any one becomes a Christian? What act of yours gave you the name of Christian? At what time had Paul the name of Christ called on him? At what time did Cornelius have Christ named on him? Is it not through this name we obtain eternal life? Does the name of Christ or Christian belong to any but those who believe the gospel, repent, and are buried by baptism into the death of Christ?" (This letter and the follow correspondence is found in Campbell's Millennial Harbinger for 1837. Page numeration is from the most recent reprint by College Press (pp. 411-414).

Campbell vigorously defended his statement. He argued that there must be Christians among the Protestant sects or else there would have been no Christians in the world for generations prior to beginning of their restoration movement. But the Protestant sects he referred to all began in the 16th century or later. What was the situation in that long dreary period when corrupt Catholicism prevailed? He confused Christian individuals with organized, visible congregations and significant movements. Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21). Even when the agents of the popes crushed every public effort to worship and serve God independent of his yoke, devout souls who obeyed God were citizens of his invisible kingdom. A righteous remnant; a handful here and there faithfully served the Master. So long as the sacred seed, Word of God, survived the kingdom would not fail (Luke 8:11).

He argued that Jesus promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against the church (Matt. 16:18) and if there were no Christians in the sects, then Satan would have prevailed for centuries. Such, he reasoned, could not be. He misunderstood Christ's meaning in the passage cited. Jesus did not speak of the gates of "Hell" which our King James translators gave us. He said "the gates of Hades" would not keep him from building his church. (Campbell so rendered the word in his Living Oracles translation). That meant that even though he must die and go to Hades (the place of the dead) his plan would not be defeated. By this he spake of his forthcoming resurrection, after which he would build his church.

He argued that his plea to sectarians to come out of Babylon and be united with his brethren proved there were Christians in the denominations. He later explained that the term "Christian" had more than one level of meaning. It not only describes the true, obedient follower of Christ, but also describes people, projects and institutions that are dedicated to Christ and his Cause, even though they might not be fully or wholly pleasing to him. Thus we speak of Christian books, a Christian nation or the Christian World in contrast to the Hindu or Muslim world. In his last letter he insisted "They (his critics) only misunderstood me as using the term in its strictest biblical import, while in the case before us I used it in its best modern acceptation" (p. 567).

We would not question that there are many devout, god-fearing souls scattered in the denominations. Most who have spent their lives in evangelism have encountered such devout people. When an honest and humble believer, who desires above all else to serve God, sees the error of his association and finds the true church of Christ he will gladly abandon the inferior for the true and genuine.

He wrote, "I think there are many, in most Protestant parties, whose errors and mistakes I hope the Lord will forgive." This benevolent prayer is commendable for all who hope for heaven, even we who have committed ourselves to following His divine instructions without pause or let. Should God in his mercy grant such a blessing at the judgment, no saint will protest or complain. Yet it would be presumptuous for us to promise any person salvation without compliance with the will of Christ. We can only show a person the revealed will of the Savior and encourage them to submit to it. Those who in faith obey Him can rest on His blessed promises that their sins are forgiven; that they are saved and that heaven is theirs. Those who do not can have no such assurance.

Campbell also reasoned that some make the mistake of thinking that immersion is the defining mark of the saved, whether the baptized person lives a devout life or not. He reasoned that a godly profession was just as important as one's proper baptism. Hence if he encountered a member of a church that practiced sprinkling, yet lived a godly life of service and a brother properly immersed for the remission of sins who failed to live such a godly life, he would prefer the pious unimmersed disciple. Note that he makes his preference the determining factor. But he will not be the one to judge us (Rom. 14:10). He would not make immersion the single standard of Christian standing. Nor should we. Both proper obedience and proper living are essential! Being right in the form of baptism will not cover a refusal to imitate the Savior (I Cor. 11:1) and obey his will (Matt. 7:21). On the other hand the emphasis placed on baptism by the Master himself makes it impossible to grant brotherly recognition to those who have not submitted to it. Jesus said, "Except one be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5). If words mean anything, these tell us that baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit stand between every sinner and the kingdom or church of Christ. The question is, do we believe them? Saul of Tarsus was told to "be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord" (Acts 22:16). One cannot be saved until his sins are washed away. But that is accomplished when one is immersed as Christ ordained. Hence one cannot be saved until he has been properly baptized. We recognize that the water has no cleansing power. Only the blood of Jesus can save us (I John 1:7). The Savior has appointed baptism as time and place when that is done.

Campbell summarized by saying, "There is no occasion, then, for making immersion, on a profession the faith, absolutely essential to a Christian..." (p. 414). This statement is just as faulty as "Baptism is not necessary for salvation;" or "Regular observance of the Lord's Supper is not imperative;" or "Being a member of the Christ's spiritual body, the church is not essential;" or "Worshiping God with his people is not important." It is a door that admits every kind of error.

He concluded by saying, "So I reason and I think in so reasoning I am sustained by all the Prophets and Apostles of both Testaments" (p. 414). This is an interesting self-justification for an article that offers only four vague Scripture references in four pages filled with speculation and rationalizations.

When a storm letters came protesting his article, Bro. Campbell responded by saying "We gave it as our opinion that there were Christian among the Protestant sects..." (p. 506). Should he not also have granted the same generous presumption of salvation to the devout unimmersed within the Roman Catholic faith? If not why? Those who insisted that only those properly immersed are truly redeemed, Campbell labeled as Ultraists, i.e., extremists on the issue. He conceded, "We cheerfully agree with them (his critics), as well as with our sister ...that the term Christian was given first to immersed believers and to none else; but we do not think that it was given to them because they were immersed, but because they had put on Christ" (p. 507). Note that he never answered the lady's question about how one puts on Christ! It is when we are baptized into Christ that we put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). He labored to defuse the situation by saying, "Still my opinion is no rule of action to my brethren, nor would I offer it unsolicited to any man..." (p. 508). Change agents have presented Campbell's opinion as a doctrinal standard and promoted it whether solicited or not. He continued, "Therefore our opinion militates not against the value of baptism in any sense" (p. 564). But it does! For instead of the clear message of Christ which teaches that remission of sins is conditioned on proper baptism (Acts 2:38), his view says baptism is fine but if you don't do it, it is OK so long as you live a good and devout life.

Of the sister's questions posed in her letter Campbell wrote, "She proposed a list of questions, involving, as she supposed, either insuperable difficulties or strong objections to that saying...I answered them not: but attended to the difficulty which I imagined she felt in the aforesaid saying" (p. 564). It seems more likely he could not easily answer her questions and maintain his position so he "observed the passover."

Campbell rationalized, "Some of our brethren were too much addicted to denouncing the sects and representing them en masse as wholly aliens from the possibility of salvation..." (p. 564). While this case was true then and is yet true in some quarters, it does not justify taking a position that stands at odds with the revealed will of Christ. That some are uncharitable in the way they deal with members of other confessions, does not justify us in relaxing the standards of Christ. Better to try to teach the offending brethren to display a more charitable spirit in their preaching!

The editor conceded that to disarm sectarian critics who accused him of heading and building up his own party, "I consented the more readily to defend Protestantism; and I have...endeavored to show the Protestant public that it is with the greatest reluctance we are compelled to stand aloof from them..." (p. 565). Of those of other religious parties, he affirms, "they must certainly come over to us whenever they come to the Bible alone" (p. 566). He concludes the correspondence by saying, "A Christian is one that habitually believes all that Christ says, and habitually does all that he bids him" (p. 566). To this all can say a hearty amen!

The immediate response to Campbell's Lunenburg Letters was overwhelmingly negative. Campbell acknowledged receiving "numerous letters" from brethren who took exception to his expressed views (p. 561). He also acknowledged hearing from sectarians who taunted him saying, "Then we are as safe as you." and "You are coming over to us, having now conceded the greatest of all points;–viz. that immersion is not essential to a Christian" (p. 561) He promised that he would be publishing some of the objections received but a search of the following issues of the Millennial Harbinger did not reveal a single one of them. A year later he began publishing a series by an unknown brother under the pseudonym Christianos that endorsed his position. Responses challenging the view were offered by T. M. Henley and M. Winans. When the discussion had run its course, Campbell wrote two concluding lessons that are crucial to properly understanding the Lunenburg controversy.

He wrote, "The word Christian has three distinct acceptations in modern times. It has a national, a sectarian and a scriptural meaning. Nationally it means one that is not a Jew, a Mohammedan...but a professor of the Christian faith. In the style of the sects it means something more and better than a Romanist, a churchman, a Presbyterian.... It means one who is supposed to be a follower of Christ in the moral virtues of his religion without regard to his tenets, in comparison with other sectaries. And scripturally it means one who has first believed in Jesus as Messiah, repented of his sins, and been immersed in water into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and who follows Christ in all his appointments. Such were they who were first called Christians. Now in this latter sense it can never be applied to any but to those who resemble the disciples described in the Acts of the Apostles; while in the first and second senses of the term there are many Christians among the sects..." (M. H. 1840, p. 164).

He continued, "But in this day of increasing light, I confess that in my opinion, the cases of involuntary ignorance are becoming fewer and more few; and that the hope of remission for many who do not, who will not examine and obey from the heart the Savior's precepts, becomes more and more feeble; and therefore there is no very bright side of the picture for those who are at ease in Zion—whose fear of God is taught by the precepts of men rather than by the oracles of Apostles and Prophets" (M. H. 1840, p. 165).

He further states, "Everything depends on the definition of this word Christian, before we decide where he may be found. The disciples of Christ were those who first received that name. Now what is a disciple of Christ? Are there any disciples of Christ among the religious sects? That there are no one of much intelligence can doubt. The phrase disciples of Christ did not uniformly represent those who believed and practiced all the same things...Now if we use the word Christian as used in Antioch, none can wear it unless he resembles the Antiochans in knowledge and practice: but if we use the phrase ‘disciples of Christ' as commonly used in the New Testament, we may, perhaps, find many of them among the sects" (M.H. 1840, p. 128) "Now amongst the sects there are many disciples of Christ; but, perhaps very few to whom the name Christian would rightfully apply in the exact latitude of its meaning at the time of its first application" (M. H., 1840, p. 276).

Thus after some two years of contemplation and having taken heavy buffeting from his friends, the illustrious editor decided that he would like to rephrase his ill-stated words and offer his opinion that in rare cases some who in fact never had opportunity to know all the truth about the means of salvation might possibly find acceptance with God. This conviction is also expressed in Campbell's book The Christian System, in a footnote on p. 174-175.

Over a century ago the liberal element of the restoration brotherhood rediscovered Campbell's Lunenburg letters. With them in hand they justified abandoning the premise of restoring the one true church of Christ and chose to seek acceptance as a denomination among the family of denominations. Today they are found in the Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches. Some forty years ago, Carl Ketcherside and the first generation of our modern change agents found them again and put them to similar use. Bro. Rubel Shelly's book, I Just Want to Be A Christian, was built on the premise of these letters. Today, in the absence of Scripture, they are cited by our change agents as their authority to embrace denominationalism and those not born of water and the Spirit as their brethren.

While Campbell conceded that there were some few "Christians among the sects," our change agents leap from his particular concession to the general conclusion that all sects are equally acceptable to God as is the church of Christ and that all who believe in Jesus are therefore saved by the grace of God. If the premises of our change agents are true, the noble thing for them to do would be to immediately present themselves to their denominational neighbors and ask for their forgiveness for standing apart all these years. They should disband and cease to exist as a separate body of people and ask for admission to their nearest denominational church. The fact is, denominationalism is wrong in principle and practice (John 17:17; I Cor. 1:10;3:5). Change agents and their churches freely acknowledge themselves to be denominationalist. Therefore they are wrong and stand condemned by God and self.

What shall we say of our departed brother, Alexander Campbell? He was a brilliant man, an extraordinary scholar of Scripture, a capable preacher and leader, but he was fallible as are we all. Bro. Campbell did not found the church of Christ. That was the province of the Son of God (Matt. 16:18). The Sage of Bethany was not the author of our faith and practice. That is clearly set forth in the New Testament of Jesus (Heb. 12:2). His writings, brilliant and informative though they be, and of great historical interest, were not normative or binding for the church of his day, nor for us today. The careful student of Campbell's life and writings will find other inconsistencies and errors in his thinking. This in no way should detract from our appreciation of his life and work. The same would be true of any one of us. The greater question is, shall we cling to Campbell's mistaken views? Change agents doggedly cling to these letters because they seem to justify their prior decision to abandon the old faith and seek a new home in the ecumenical world of Protestantism. They provide balm for their consciences and give them a cloak of respectability as they bid the Bible way goodbye.

John Waddey

The most prominent of our self-appointed “agents of change” is Bro. Rubel Shelly of Nashville, TN. He and Randall Harris of David Lipscomb University are authors of “The Second Incarnation.” Their title reflects the creative idea that as Jesus was incarnate in his fleshly body, so he is now incarnate in his spiritual body the church (p. 48). While the idea is intriguing, it is not Biblical.

A common characteristic of “change agents” is their attempt to present themselves as theologians who have discovered new truths we non-theologians have failed to discern. This book is filled with ponderous theological jargon that suggests the authors have grown weary of the simplicity and the purity of the gospel (II Cor. 11:3). Enamored by their higher education in secular and denominational schools, the authors have come home to impose on us what they absorbed in that environment. When establishing their points, quotes of theologians seem to be preferred over scripture citations. They will doubtless impress their peers with their quotes from Tillich, Bultman, Bonhoeffer and others. It lets us know that the authors are widely read in the theologians of liberalism and that they have learned the obtuse vocabulary of the seminaries. Such is learned in graduate programs at some of our schools whose professors do not allow students to use references from members of churches of Christ in their research papers. The authors seem unable to discern between Biblical Christianity and the denominational version they have embraced.

Their method is to build and attack a straw man, charging those who reject their views with beliefs and practices not commonly held. They pick the most ignorant, out of touch, opinionated preachers; the most legalistic agitators and exhibit them as typical of all conservatives who oppose their program for change. In contrast, they present themselves and their comrades as loving, caring moderates, real scholars who only wish to save the church from self-destruction.

Change agents operate on faulty assumptions.

<> That they have discovered and are practicing a more spiritual, God-pleasing kind of religion than that known by the thousands of preachers, elders and disciples who have labored and served our brotherhood for the last 200 years.

<> That none but them know, understand and appreciate the grace of God. Long before some of them were born, great men of God taught us about God’s saving grace.

<> That none but them understand the blessings and benefits of the indwelling Holy Spirit in the Christian’s life.

<> That our concept of restoration means restoring a specific congregation from first century days.

<> That they have discovered a new and superior approach to Bible interpretation. With that they claim to have found the true nature of the church. In reality, it is the old, emotion-based, subjective approach of Protestantism. Their Bible is a story book, serving only as a source for quotes for sermons, but not for regulating and guiding the faith, worship and practice of the church.

<> That all of us but them are only interested in the doctrines and practices of the church and not truly dedicated to Christ and trying to be like him.

<> That all but them are narrow, bigoted, and legalistic.

<> That we claim that we are a perfect church and that we have attained complete compliance with every aspect of Christ’s will for us. Do you claim that?

How they view the church. Although the authors profess to love the church, their written words belie that claim. For they hold the “traditional” churches of Christ, who refuse to accept their changes, in contempt, or in condescending pity. The churches they love are “their churches,” i.e., those embracing their changes. “Thus we have the right to reconsider our identity...Worship, life, mission, and evangelism all take on new appearances...” (p. 241). “...for some people, a relationship with God is virtually synonymous with church activity: if the particular religious community of which they are a part were to disappear ...for them it would amount to the disappearance of God” (p. 178). For their definition of the church they prefer that of Hans Kung, noted Catholic theologian, rather than that of the Scripture (p. 71): “The meaning of the church does not reside in itself, in what it is, but in what it is moving towards...” They do not accept the scriptural description of the church as the kingdom of Christ (Col. 1:13; Matt. 16:18-19). “If the church were to claim to be the complete realization of the kingdom, its claim would be idolatrous....and appear hypocritical...” (p. 76-77). They view the church today as a continuity from the first century which includes the corrupt Roman Catholic Church of the “middle ages” (p. 79). They do not see anything permanent or stable about the church. It is always fluid and changeable. “What we must realize is that there is no finality for the church in any of its corporate manifestations” (p. 63). “The wine is the bubbling, churning gospel. It is the ever-arriving-yet-never-fully-realized-on-Earth kingdom of God” ( p. 11) By their approach, any denomination or group of people who sincerely are trying to be like Christ are a true church, a part of his body (Chapter 3). They hope to bring about “a shift of allegiance from denominational loyalty to Christ, but in reality they would turn us away from Christ to a denominational status (p. 57).

How they view the concept of restoration of original Christianity. The authors reveal that they no longer believe the concept of restoration is viable or desirable. “Even if there were a perfect church, our proper task would not be to reproduce its forms...” (p. 63). “We reject a rigid ‘pattern theology’ that simply proposes to transplant religious-cultural forms from the Bible to the ...21st century (p. 63). Instead they encourage each disciple to be like Christ. But to imitate Christ we must look to his New Testament to find out what he is like. If looking to the New Testament cannot tell us how to be a church, how can it tell us how to be like Christ?

How they view our worship. “The tired, uninspiring event called worship in our churches must give way to an exhilarating experience...” (p. 13). Chapter 6 is devoted to their vision for changes in our worship. Some of their ideas are harmless, others are not really new. But they are determined to find a way to undermine our acappella congregational singing with soloists, choirs (and as later information shows, instruments). They would make the Lord’s Supper part of a fellowship meal (p. 219). They assert that the worship of the early church was derived from the Jewish synagogue rather than ordained by the founder of the church (p. 135). Their concept of worship will include “jubilation...perhaps with applause and cheering....” p. 140).

How they view Biblical authority. Embracing and espousing a “New Hermeneutics” or new way of understanding the Scripture, they propose that by looking at the story of Jesus we will be better able to do God’s will than by depending on specific scriptures that address given subjects. They are bold to say “we reject a rigid ‘pattern theology’ that simply proposes to transplant religious-cultural forms from the Bible to the ...21st century” (p. 31). Scripture “certainly does not present an absolute blueprint for building a church; it does however, provide the theological parameters for such a project” (p. 36). “A bare historical precedent is not binding in and of itself. In their reading of scripture they “look for theological principles: eternal truths...” rather than for commands and prohibitions or apostolic examples (p. 36-37). Their guidelines for determining what we should do are thoroughly subjective.

How they view the doctrines long held and preached by churches of Christ. “Those of us who are insiders to the church have fallen into the rut of perpetuating fallible—even corrupt and toxic—theologies, projects and systems “ (p. 240). “We honor and preserve certain cherished traditions, but we preserve them as traditions without consciously or unconsciously elevating them to the status of dogmas” (p. 241-242). The purpose of their book is to “offer a contemporary theology of the church” (p. 42). To protect themselves, they seek to pre-paint those who resist their efforts as bad folks who “become defensive, (and) mount an attack against the searchers, and try to discount those who have dared register their serious concerns by discrediting both their questions and their motivations” (p. 242).

Those promoting these concepts of change do so in the name of saving the church, making it relevant for the 21st century and saving the lost. Yet almost all of them preach for congregations others (who did not hold their views) established and built up. They operate from meeting houses others paid for. They recruit young sympathizers from other congregations. The changes they promote are those Protestant and Catholic leaders were promoting in the 1960s and 70s. Our change agents are just now catching up to that bandwagon. They are descended from a long line of change agents dating from 1849. Men such as D. S. Burnett who introduced and championed the missionary society, L. L. Pinkerton who introduced the first instrument of music in worship, W. Carl Ketcherside and Leroy Garrett who for 30 years sowed their seeds of change, Chuck Lucas and Kip McKeen who wished to renew us and founded the “Discipling Movement.” How oft are we subjected to preachers, who while condemning the church for her divisions, problems and lack of progress, propose solutions that will certainly result in yet another conflict and division and thus hinder progress? These brethren should do the honorable thing and dissociate themselves from the Churches of Christ, which they so despise. When Bro. John Mulkey concluded that he could no longer endorse or preach Baptist doctrine, he stood before his Baptist brethren and announced his resignation and departure. He was an honorable man.

John Waddey

Darwin Chandler of Sierra Vista, AZ has recently published The Royal Law of Liberty. It is subtitled "Living in Freedom Under Christ's Law of Love." The author was previously associated with churches of Christ and preached among us for several years. He has now abandoned his former faith. He says, "We were born into a denomination whose emphasis in all spiritual matters was firmly set in works-righteousness" (p. 1). The "denomination" of which he writes is the church of Christ. "Ultimately a break had to be made with the church of our birth" (p. ii). His present estimate of churches of Christ and his former brethren is one of scornful pity, condescension and hostility. We include his book in our reviews because he voices the same general message as the large family of change agents at work among us. His abandonment of New Testament Christianity and his departure from our fellowship is prophetic of what we can expect from hundreds of other disaffected champions of change.

Bro. C. declares that "2,000 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, His disciples still know little or nothing about the freedom for which Christ set us free" (Forward). But he is certain he does know about this freedom; only one of millions able to discover this truth. He surely does not underestimate his own wisdom!

The central thesis of his book is that God has but one law for His people; that we love our neighbor as ourselves. But then he remembers that there is at least one other law, that we must love God! Everything else he writes derives from this belief. He then concludes that there are no other commands, ordinances of statutes for Christians to be concerned with. Note the following: "We must forget about serving God via obedience to commands and concentrate on loving Him and other people" (p. vi). "Thus one may make a list of every individual law contained in the Bible, then strike through all of them and write over them, ‘Love others as you love yourself'" (p. 4). We wonder why then did God go to the trouble of writing all those commands? He writes, "Thus under the Royal Law of Liberty we do not memorize rules, we just live by love" (p. 36). "If we love man and God we do not need to memorize codes of behavior that prevent us from harming people or dishonoring God" (p. 36). Just where has he learned this?

Bro. Chandler's system is not new; it is the ancient error of "antinomianism." Antinomianism is defined as, "an opposition to law, specifically, a rejection of the idea that the Christian's life need be governed by laws or rules" (Concise Dictionary of Theology). "The spiritualization of the law into the one precept of love to God, taught and exemplified by Jesus, encouraged some over- enthusiastic devotees to believe they had been exalted to such a height of spirituality and overmastering love to God that they needed to have no regard to moral precepts or to outward conduct..." (Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. 1, p. 196). John Wesley rightly described antinomianism as "the doctrine which makes void the law through faith" (McClintock & Strong Cyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 264).

From Bro. C's book we can see how his doctrine plays out in the life of people.

A. In the Realm of Salvation: He argues that man is saved by grace alone. "It becomes obvious that salvation from inception to completion must be by pure grace else no one can be saved..." (p. 41). "Nothing human enters into this spiritual birth; it is all God's doing" (p. 42-43). What then of faith, repentance and baptism? His teaching is pure Calvinism. He then says, "We are saved, sanctified, justified, adopted, etc. If we believe, not if we obey" (p. 43). But he just said it was wholly of grace, nothing human enters into our salvation. Which assertion is correct?

B. In Daily Discipleship: He says, "Personal holiness will not be measured by how well we avoid sinful practices. Christ's likeness in us will not be recognized by specific behaviors, but by Christ's love in our life. What determines whether we are ‘faithful Christians' will not be external things like church attendance, tithing, praying, worshiping, fasting, etc..." (p. 16). "If we live under this new standard of love, we do not need a list of ‘rights and wrongs' because the Divine impulse of love reliably leads us to do what is right" (p. 38). We must ask, if God has eliminated all lists of right and wrong, why did he give us passages such as Gal. 5:19-20? He believes, "Those who are filled with God's love just naturally do the things God's law requires, even if they know nothing specific about the law" (p. 44). Thus a person in Africa who has never seen the Bible, heard or read a Christian message, will naturally keep God's law if he loves God! Believe it who will! But then Bro. C. teaches that God has no law for us today. How can this be?

C. In Moral Conduct: "Nothing is immoral unless it harms other people or dishonors God" (p. 38). "We learn from this that the fundamental right-ness or wrong-ness of any action is determined not by whether the Bible contains a specific law, but by the effect of that action on other people. If our actions do not harm others, or disrespect their person or property, then those actions are within the realm of personal choice (p. 149). Then what of pornography, or lust, or hatred that is not acted upon? He says, "All sex acts are inherently ‘clean'... are inherently ‘lawful'... are ‘good'..." (p. 449). What of homosexual acts? Incest? Bestiality? He is intoxicated with his imagined wisdom.

D. In Worship: He takes strong exception to our conviction that, "we must have Bible authority for everything we do in faith and practice" (p. 24) and repudiates it. He believes "The Scripture simply does not teach that we must have ‘Scriptural authority' for everything we do" (p. 24). "People can worship and serve God in as great variety as true love can motivate. It is literally true that there is no limit to the ways one may offer loving worship to God. He will accept every expression of love including those that other humans judge ridiculous" (p. 31). Would he include blessing of pets, interpretive dancing, magic performances, weight lifters for Christ, acid rock and other sordid things some misguided souls dare to offer to God in the name of Christianity? "He who offers instrumental music as a love offering to God, pleases God and worships him so much more effectively than one whose whole motivation is trying to find a law to obey...' (p. 28). He offers no Scripture to substantiate these claims. He states, "The mass of evidence" "allows women ...to minister and be leaders in Christ's church" (p. 447). With the wave of his hand he dismisses I Cor. 14:34 and I Tim. 2:12. He pits OT verses and others unrelated to preaching to cancel the message of those two clearly stated prohibitions.

E. In the Way We Read, Understand and Respect the Bible: "His (Christ's) law is not...the same in any sense, as living under rules, commandments and ordinances" (p. 41). "And we know that whatever is the purpose of Christ's law, it is not meant for salvation." "One cannot be saved by obeying Christ's law any more than one can be saved by obeying Moses' law" (p. 41-42). But Paul says that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death" (Rom. 8:1-2). He tells us, "God never intended that these laws be understood as being inherently valuable" (p. 23). "God is not pleased with the efforts of those who attempt to formulate church operations on the basis of ‘the authority of Scripture'" (p. 36). Just how does he know this? What verse does he cite to prove it? He says, "We no longer need to carry the law-book (i.e. the Bible jhw), consulting it for every possible human situation requiring a moral decision. If people have God's love in their hearts...they will be able to know what is right and will be motivated to do it" (p. 44). He writes, "But unless the Holy Spirit is released to apply the word and bring it to life within our heart, that ministry (preaching the word, jhw) is worse than useless, it is deadly" (p. 143). That the word of God is dead and lifeless until the Holy Spirit enlightens the hearer is pure Calvinism. It also contradicts Paul declaration that it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe (I Cor. 1:21).

F. His Attitude Toward God and his Son and their Sacred Will for Mankind: "Jesus Christ abolished the entire structure of law/commandment/ordinance" (p. 145). What then of Jesus' teaching that only those who obey the Father will be saved (Matt. 7:21)? What of His command to teach disciples to obey all things he commanded (Matt. 28:20)? He says, "The church is oblivious to the fact that we are no longer judged by God's law" (p. 154). Is he oblivious to John 12:48 where Jesus said, "The words I have spoken will judge you in the last day?" Or what of Rev. 20:11-12? He says, "He (Paul) straightforwardly taught that man can no longer serve God on the basis of obeying law–all law, any law, even God's law" (p. 157). Such reckless boldness! He reasons, "Sin in ‘transgression of law' so if there is no law there cannot be sin." "Since the only ‘law' of King Jesus is the Law of Love, the only sin we can commit now is a violation of love" (p. 438). Of Jesus he says, "What distinguished Jesus above the crowd was not that He kept every jot and tittle of God's law perfectly. It was that He loved God with all His heart...what made Jesus ‘holy' was not the perfection of his obedience but the depth of his love" (p. 6). This borders on blasphemy. See Heb. 5:8-9! He tells us, "Jesus never once advised ‘holy' people to ‘withdraw fellowship from those who were ‘unholy' or ‘unscriptural'" (p. 19). Has he not read Matt. 18:15-18, or II Thess. 3:6?

G. His Attitude Toward His Brethren in Christ: "Those who judge by standards other than love– and that includes virtually all church leaders, theologians, community leaders..." (p. 37). Note how Bro. C. judges Christian leaders who make judgments based on God's Word, yet he judges brethren who are critical of false teachers such as himself. He writes, "We have been taught for generations that Christ gave us a law that replaces the law of Moses. Christ's law, we are told is the same kind of law as Old Testament law..." (p. 39). No knowledgeable brother in the church says this...it is the fabrication of a fevered mind. He asserts, "... the church does not know the meaning of ‘grace.' After 2000 years, the church does not understand the meaning of the ‘vicarious atonement' of Christ" (p. 154). Of all the millions who have professed Christ, does he alone know these things? He continues, "...God abrogated law as a means for being righteous...Sadly the church still has not received this truth after 2,000 years (p. 140). Evidently he only recently discovered this truth. Others have known and preached it over the ages. He says, "Attacking legalism is necessary for all those who truly desire to honor God's law and Him alone..." (But he includes every one who seeks to comply with Christ's revealed will as a legalist, thus his hand is raised against all but himself and his few sympathizers)! (p. 158). "We have referenced extreme human suffering caused by the church's error on such issues as race and slavery, witchcraft, salvation by grace, the Crusades, and so forth" (p. 447). Note how, typical of liberals, he blames the church (principally churches of Christ) for every sin and evil that has every transpired. Churches of Christ had no part in burning witches or the Crusades. While many Christians failed to do their duty regarding slavery and racism, others bravely met the challenge and did the right thing. Does he think he would have behaved in a superior manner had he lived in the turbulent era from 1800 to 1865? Has he a perfect record in dealing with other racial groups?

Fundamental Errors of Bro. Chandler's Book:

* He fails to understand that while salvation is a free gift of God's grace God has made reception of it conditional on obedience (Heb. 5:8-9)
* He fails to distinguish between the Law of Moses which has indeed been abrogated (Rom. 7:4), and the law of Christ to which Christians are now amenable (John 12:48; Rom. 8:1-2).
* He fails to understand that the two great commands to love God and our neighbor (Matt. 22:37-39), are illustrative of all other laws, the foundation upon which they rest. They are not the only laws.
* Blinded by his antinomianism, he denigrates and dismisses the commandments of Christ and embraces the Situation Ethics of Harvey Cox of days past.
* Because of his faulty understanding of Christ's gospel he mistakenly embraces the errors of Calvinism; namely salvation by grace alone, enabling grace and divine enlightenment by the Holy Spirit.
* Because he holds a faulty understanding of legalism, he wrongly concludes that anyone who loves, honors and obeys the Will of God is a legalist. If that were so Jesus would be a legalist (Heb. 5:8-9).
* Like religious liberals of the 19th and early 20th centuries he holds a romantic and utopian view of humanity's ability to live by love without law. Their dream collapsed in the face of two World Wars and the horrors of Communism. His theory cannot survive the realities of human life and conduct.
* He mistakenly thinks he has found something new and different, when it is but ancient heresy that has deceived men in generations past.

Conclusion: Although we find the teaching and conclusions of Darwin Chandler faulty and thus reject them, we commend him for leaving the church he no longer believes in or loves. In this he is more noble than other agents of change who like him no longer love the church of Christ yet they lurk among us trying to seduce and destroy the faith of others.

John Waddey

The Transforming of a Tradition is the title of a book edited and published last year by Leonard Allen and Lynn Anderson. It purports to examine the “Churches of Christ in the New Millennium,” identify their myriad problems and offer solutions that will save them from extinction. The several authors who contributed chapters to this book all share a common belief that the restoration plea is unworkable in our post-Christian age; that we must accept the fact that we are actually a denomination, in the same sense as are the Methodists and Lutherans; that we must cease to be a separate, exclusive body of people and embrace an ecumenical approach to Christianity.

They are certain that we have approached the Bible in a faulty way in days past and must learn to view it as a love letter from God or a story book about Jesus. They are sure that all of our large metropolitan congregations are going their way and that even small town churches will eventually follow their lead. As part of their plan they want us to embrace the liberal social agenda of the political left. We must get involved in the AIDS Crusade, the Civil Rights Movement, Care of the Homeless, Women’s Liberation and other similar causes.

As I was reading Allen and Anderson’s book, the Associated Press carried an article by religious observer, Richard Ostling, that evaluated the situation of contemporary Protestant churches in America. The author points out that evangelical (i.e., conservative) Protestant churches are flourishing while the liberal churches are declining in a serious way. Citing a study by Randall Balmer and Lauren Winner entitled Contemporary American Religion (Columbia University Press), he notes that “the mainliners (large Protestant denominations) built their strategy around ecumenism,” while “the most successful religious movements in American history have been exclusive, not inclusive.” While the liberal churches were minimizing differences, “Americans were looking for theological definition.” He further observes that “Evangelicals’ momentum stems from the centrality of the Bible... In the late 19th century, liberal notions about the Scriptures infiltrated U. S.

Protestantism from Europe...the liberals held a somewhat less exalted view of the Bible...and tended to see its tenets as time bound. The Evangelicals, by contrast, insisted that the simplest, most obvious reading of the Bible was the correct one. They take the Bible seriously...” Ballmer and Winner are convinced that “evangelicalism is helping spark a Christian intellectual renaissance.”

Had I not known better I might have thought Ostling was referring to the “change agents” at work among our churches when he described the liberal’s attitude towards the Bible and their desire to embrace the ecumenical movement. All who have kept abreast of religious trends in America know that the liberal Protestant churches are declining, and short of a major turn around will eventually cease to exist. All the success stories are from the camp of the conservative evangelicals. Yet the liberals that have arisen among our people are wanting us to follow the doomed trail and failed projects of those dying Protestant churches. My recommendation is that they leave us, join the liberal Protestant churches and follow them to their fate. The rest of us can then devote our time and energy to serving God, following his Word and sharing Christ with the lost about us.

John Waddey

Bro. LaGard Smith has given us a book entitled, “Radical Restoration.” Rather than help elders and preachers navigate through stormy waters now before us, Bro. Smith’s approach to “restoration” would do irreparable harm to any church which chooses to follow his suggestions. He perhaps inadvertently predicts the fruit of his plan by saying, “The very nature of radical restoration is such that the act of demolition is as vital as the act of creation. Invariably, wrecking crews must raze the old structure before they can begin to build anew” (p. 39).

<ul><li>Smith would resurrect the “mutual ministry” practice of the late Carl Ketcherside and Leroy Garrett. To see just how successful that approach to teaching and church building is, one need only consult Mac Lynn’s directory of “Churches of Christ in the United States.” Those who do will note that congregations identified by a “ME,” i.e., a mutual edification symbol, are few in number and often as few as 10 or 15 in membership. That is the result of 75 years of mutual ministry without “located preachers.”

<li>He would confound the Lord’s Supper with a common fellowship meal. Paul addressed this question in I Cor. 11:20-23. He made it clear that the Lord’s Supper is not a meal where hungry appetites are satisfied. For those who wished to dine and commune together, he said, “In this I praise you not.” Coziness and intimacy are not ingredients of the Lord’s Supper.

<li>He would have our congregations abandon their public meeting houses and resort to private homes. He and others who are enamored with house churches seem to overlook that literally hundreds of our congregations began in homes of members. As they grew they eventually secured their own public places of assembly. Generally we build because it is more economical in the long run than renting and provides facilities that are designed to meet congregation needs. Also, because it gives us permanency and presence in a community that a rented hall cannot provide. His recommendation would forever limit the church to small “home” sized congregations that would be endlessly dividing into more small groups.

<li>He would have us consider the possibility of having one set of elders to supervise all the churches in a particular city. Even this concept has been floated before. It has flourished best in the diocesan concept of Catholicism with its citywide bishop, but it is not biblical. The apostles “appointed for them elders in every church” (Acts 14:23).

<li>To further complicate our survival, he would have us to exist without specific identify in a world of competing and confusing religious organizations. Although he cannot fault the Bible name “church of Christ” he would have us discard it for other, less distinctive, names that would not help the most diligent searcher find in which private home we are meeting. Also he evidently would have us discontinue placing our addresses and phone numbers in the yellow pages of the phone directories lest we by so doing join the ranks of denominations.

<li>He would have us operate without funds except those gathered for occasional emergency benevolent situations.

</ul>Granted, Bro. Smith is a learned man of the law and he is currently riding a crest of popularity on the campus scene. He would have been more convincing if he had first launched just such a congregation as he proposes and after ten years reported back to us with a progress report. But one need not have a PhD to perceive that his “Radical Restoration” will only result in radical decline and ultimate demise for those who follow his program. His suggestions are indeed radical but they have nothing to do with the restoration of New Testament Christianity. They might however eventuate in a new kind of church...one looking back to Smith as its originator.

John Waddey

The Crux of the Matter is a book recently published by Abilene Christian University Press and highly endorsed by Dr. Royce Money, president of that school. It is the joint work of Jeff W. Childers, Douglas A. Foster and Jack R. Reese, professors in ACU’s Graduate School of Theology. The book is subtitled, “Crisis, Tradition, and the Future of Churches of Christ.” The authors present themselves as resolvers of our problems, but in reality they are part of the problem.

For readers not trained in the jargon of denominational seminaries, much of this book will be unintelligible mumbo-jumbo. For example, “Truth without elegance is untrue, or at least incomplete” (p. 209). Putting great stock in being theologians, they express their thoughts in dark, ponderous phrases to which the average reader may answer, “What?” Two of the authors being historians, prefer to attribute all major aspects of our faith and practice to influences wrought by men, institutions and events from the past, rather than to our commitment to the Bible. Our tenacity in clinging to our beliefs and practice they attribute to our loyalty to our traditions, rather than to Scripture. They are certain that we are what we are because of pre-restoration denominational influences such as Lutheranism, Calvinism, Arminianism, etc. (Chapt. 4). The authors do not oppose tradition; they love it and believe that it must be factored in when deciding what is right or wrong. Viewing matters through their theological spectacles, they confuse the sacred traditions of Scripture (II Thess. 3:6) with those of men (Matt. 15:6-9).

One must read 114 pages of the book before he reaches the thesis of the authors. It is, that while we may be Christians we certainly are not the only Christians. The fifth chapter is devoted to this theme which beginning in the 1960s was long propagated among us by W. Carl Ketcherside and Leroy Garrett. They dearly love Alexander Campbell’s Lunenberg Letters; elevating them virtually to the level of Scripture (p. 115). In this they join the Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches who have long done the same thing. Like the Disciples, they forget that Campbell was only a preacher in our midst, not our founder nor the authoritative interpreter of our faith.

On p. 117 they introduce one major thrust of their work, “Many in Churches of Christ no longer believe that instrumental music in worship is a salvation issue.” Later they acknowledge this is their position and the use thereof should not be “grounds for disfellowship” (p. 247). Their goal is expressed on pp. 117-118. Thus they call upon us to reexamine the possibility that we are just a denomination, instrumental music and all other issues...with a non-defensive, humble attitude...” Interpreted that means, do not actively oppose their efforts to change us.

The authors cleverly mask their radical ideas with repeated use of “perhaps,” “maybe,” or “some believe.” This provides cover when they are called to account for their unscriptural views. They will be able to deny that they themselves say this; only that some may or may not have done so.

Readers will be impressed at the dearth of Scripture used by the authors when establishing their points. This is to be expected, since their newly discovered way of approaching the Bible does not call for scriptural proof of anything. Rather, they read the whole Bible as literature, listen to theologians, consider history and tradition and talk it over with a group of Bible readers and then seek a consensus based on their core gospel (i.e., those few basics facts they view as essential (p. 183). You can be sure that these men do not see the need for finding specific or even generic Bible authority for what they believe or practice. They liken our old approach to a “stranglehold on a proof-text at the surface level and forcing it to become a direct rule” (p. 183). The authors are a bit arrogant, implying that those of us not following their lead do not know how to correctly study and comprehend God’s book. They imply that they alone know to consider the type of literature a particular Bible book is; its historical, geographical background, context, etc. They may only recently have discovered these truths, but the reviewer learned them 40 years ago in Bible School.

There are twelve glaring points made in this book:

• They reject our long held approach to ascertaining what is God’s will (p. 239). Our brethren have long believed that finding appropriate Scriptures referring to a question and determining what God says on the subject settles the point. Some things are determined by a command or prohibition. An example that reflects a command also is authoritative. By carefully comparing all that is revealed on the subject we can draw a valid conclusion.

• They see no sin in using instrumental music in worship (p. 247).

• They see no serious problem in erroneous teachings such as premillennialism since it is not one of their core issues (p. 246).

• They think that we were mistaken to break fellowship with the Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches over such issues as instrumental music in worship and missionary societies.

• They view the churches of Christ as a denomination of recent origin, full of flaws and flawed people (especially our past and present preachers who do not share their views).

• They protest that they are actually the “true conservatives” rather than liberals (p.193-194, 254).

• They believe we should not be a separate people but that we should participate with denominational neighbors in religious activities.

• Based on their unqualified acceptance of Campbell’s position in his Lunenberg Letters, they seem to be willing to accept the unimmersed as fellow Christians (p.114-115).

• They blame all the ills of churches and individuals on our “patternistic” approach to interpreting the Bible (p. 209).

• Their mission is to convince conservative brethren to not react and oppose them when they introduce their innovations into our congregations (pp. 235ff). From their perspective, “we should not see our present crisis with too much alarm” (p. 256). They have no intention of abandoning their project or leaving for a denomination where such views are standard fare. They don’t want us to protest or leave when they infiltrate a congregation and introduce their divisive practices. Such makes them look bad.

• By introducing their new, denominational concepts they are causing tension and strife in congregations across the land, but in true form they blame those who object to their disruptive practices as the troublemakers (p. 231-233).

• They have arbitrarily gone through the New Testament and identified what they call the core of the message. To them the core is the non-negotiables, all else can be taken or left behind. Their core doctrines include, the fact of God, Jesus is his Son, Christ’s death on the cross and grace. Only the things most near the core are worth fighting for. It is noteworthy that this core is the essence of every major Protestant creed. If put into practice we would be united with them around the core. Of course God says nothing about a core. It is the figment of their fruitful imagination. Thomas Jefferson had a similar concept of the core of Christianity. That notable Deist produced what is now known as the Jeffersonian Bible, with only the core preserved and all the extraneous materials omitted.

The authors of The Crux assert that “Those who blaspheme Christ by damaging his church in the name of their own cause are especially corrupt” (p. 187). They of course had in mind those who oppose their innovations. But the fact is, they are “damaging his church” and thus it is fair to say that they blaspheme Christ and “are especially corrupt.” The author has spent 45 years worshiping and teaching among our churches. He has read upwards of 2,500 religious volumes, but none were as deleterious as this. It is “full of deadly poison” and will cause harm to any congregation where its message is put into practice. Unfortunately this is the first of three books to be produced by this team of writers. We can only pray that their project will fail from lack of interest.

These professors and their president, who so warmly endorsed their book, are a classic example of how liberals gain control of a Christian school. If they had appeared at the Abilene Christian College prior to 1960, espousing such views, they would have been confronted by irate friends and supporters of the school and driven out. Now they dominate a school that others founded and financed and use it to undermine the faith their predecessors held sacred.

John Waddey

Abilene Christian University Press has recently issued "God's Holy Fire," written by three ACU professors, Cukrowski, Hamilton and Thompson. It is highly endorse by Royce Money, ACU president.

This book is built on the faulty premises that we who are members of the churches of Christ do not accept the Old Testament as part of our canon of Holy Scripture and that we do not study it. I have often heard this false charge from denomination people, unacquainted with us. They were most likely poisoned by their preachers. These scholars from ACU, who claim membership in the Church of Christ, should really know better. Consider the following quotes:

• "Eliminating the Old Testament from our canon severely curtails our understanding of the character and activities of God..." (p. 49).
• "Recovering the Old Testament conversely could transform us more fully into what we have always sought to be–Churches of Christ" (ibid.).
• "Recognizing that the Old Testament functions just as fully as the New in the canon of the church...." (p. 63).
• "Too often, we in churches of Christ have made a mistake in removing the Old Testament, for practical purposes, from our canon. The hole in Scripture has produced a hole in the practice of our faith" (p. 66).

Both of their assumptions about the acceptance of and study of the Old Testament in our churches are patently false and force us to one of the following conclusions:

• Either the authors are totally isolated from the congregations of our brotherhood, beyond the campus of their university;
• Or they are speaking of their own preaching and teaching;
• Or they are deliberately setting up an impotent straw man which they can beat and batter in order to convince those who are unlearned and ignorant of the facts that they are doing the church some great service. The announced plan and purpose of ACU's "Heart of the Restoration Series" gives some credence to this last assumption. "This series will help stimulate discussion and make a meaningful contribution to the fellowship of the churches of Christ and beyond" (Preface).

It seems to this author that in order to successfully introduce the innovations which these men wish to impose on the church, they must seduce our people away from the conviction that Christ alone is head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:22); that His Word will judge us in the last day (John 12:48); that the church is founded upon the teaching of Christ and his apostles (Eph. 2:19-20); that God has instructed us to honor Christ above key representatives of the Old Covenant, Moses and Elijah (Matt. 17:1-8).

If they can persuade folks that we are amenable to the Old Testament, the same as the New, then:

• They can have Scripture for instrumental music in worship (Ps. 150).
• They can have approval for hand clapping and dancing in worship (Ps. 47:1; 149:3).
• They can have women leaders of God's people, like Deborah and Huldah the Prophetess.
• They can have holy days, fasts and festivals like Christmas, Easter and Ash Wednesday.

These things are all on the agenda of the "change agents." Thus it makes perfectly good sense for them to write, publish and promote such a book as this. Note carefully the following lines, "A major task facing our churches is the reintegration of the Old Testament into the regular teaching, thinking and practice (emp. mine JW) of the church" (p. 49). By the way, would these learned scholars please point out one congregation or one preacher among us that does not accept study, honor and teach the Old Testament as part of God's canon of Scripture? Shame, Shame!

Dr. Rick Marrs of Pepperdine writes that this book, “promises to challenge and enrich current study of the Bible in our churches." Having read this book, this scribe is impressed with several things it will not do for its readers.

I. It will not increase ones confidence in God's Word for its authors believe we cannot know for certain the intent of Scripture writers. In this regard they assert, "Thus, it makes sense to avoid claims of absolute certainty. Although it is impossible to know with certainty what an ancient author intended..." (p. 169).

II. It will not help one be more submissive to the will of Christ because it teaches that we are responsible to Moses Law as well as that of Christ. "The question for the apostolic church was not whether the Old Testament exercised authority over them, they had no doubt it did..." (p. 57 and all of chapter 3). When Peter sought to equally honor Jesus, Moses and Elijah, God said, "This is my beloved Son...hear ye him" (Matt. 17:1-6).

III. It will not make one a better Bible student for the book's major premise is faulty: i.e., that there is no distinction between the Old and the New Covenants (chapter 3). Thus a novice might spend months or years searching through his Old Testament trying to find how to be saved. Or some new Christian in a distant mission field might be searching in Leviticus to learn how to worship God acceptably.

IV. It will not teach one to respect the Bible as the sure and certain message of God that will lead you safely to Him. The authors accept the possibility that the Bible has its mistakes, flaws and contradictions. "In numerous instances in the Bible, one finds apparent inconsistencies in the narratives. "Sometimes the narrative does not correspond to the historical record" (p. 40. See also their thoughts on pages 39-45).

V. It will not help one get to heaven for if you believe its message and follow the authors' advice you will be following a perverted gospel, different from that preached by the Apostles of Christ. Consequently you will find yourself alienated from the Christ and under a divine anathema (Gal. 1:6-7).

The book entitled God's Holy Fire is like a bowl of soup filled with chicken, noodles and vegetables and just a little of deadly poison. It should bear the warning, "Reader Beware!"

John Waddey

RENEWING GOD'S PEOPLE, A REVIEW

Renewing God's People was written by Dr. Douglas Foster and Dr. Gary Holloway of Abilene Christian and David Lipscomb Universities. It is a recent addition to a growing list of titles designed to promote and implement "progressive" changes in doctrine and practice changes among the Churches of Christ. Recommended for use in adult Bible classes, it offers a revisionist interpretation of the history of the Restoration Movement of which we are part. If members can be successfully reeducated concerning the church, our past and what we believe, they will be more receptive to suggestions to introduce unauthorized changes into their congregations.

The authors' fawning admiration of Alexander Campbell's Lunenburg Letters (pp. 80-81), speaks volumes of their intentions. True, Campbell eventually came to believe that pious unimmersed people in the denominations would be saved. But Campbell was only a man. His beliefs and practices were no more authoritative than yours or mine. He was wrong on this matter as he was when he called for a national missionary organization. To these authors it seems if they can find a line of approval for their ideas from Campbell or Stone that is sufficient to trump any Biblical statement, no matter how plain.

A brief sampling of some of their ideas is enlightening. Note the following:

• "...we do not claim to be the only Christians" (p. 82).

• "...it was not just the (Civil) war but its aftermath, particularly Reconstruction in the South, that broke Christian Fellowship." They infer that rather than serious doctrinal issues such as instrumental music in worship, missionary societies, women in leadership, fellowship with denominational bodies and theological liberalism it was these social issues that separated us from the Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches (p. 91).

• "Certainly the story of this (break with the Disciples of Christ)...is one of the most embarrassing parts of our heritage"

• (p. 98). Why should it be embarrassing to us that they departed from the faith revealed in the New Testament?

• "...although, we sometimes gave lip service to unity and being Christians only" (p. 113). Since 1930, "We talked little of Christian unity and practiced it even less. Fewer voices called for Churches of Christ to be truly non-sectarian" (p. 111). Perhaps this was the case in their congregations, but not in the city where this author grew up.

As their liberal cousins in the other realms are wont to do, they see no positive progress in racial attitudes among "White" Churches of Christ. They are impressed that the president of ACU went to Terrell, TX and made a public apology to the faculty and students of Southwestern Christian College for failures of past generations of his school's administrators. Such pilgrimages have become a sort of sackcloth and ashes experience for true liberals of our day (See pp. 108,117,121,122).

The authors near their conclusion with a glowing description of the bastions of "progressive," i.e., liberal thought and action in the church. Highlighted are Abilene Christian University, Pepperdine University, Rubel Shelly's Nashville Jubilee Celebration and Tulsa's Soul Winning Workshop. Special attention is given to the New Hermeneutic, developed by the change agents to help them evade the embarrassing limitations of Bible authority. An attempt is made at discrediting the law of silence mentioned in Heb. 7:12-14 (p. 129).

The authors reflect the typical condescending attitude toward all those not subscribing to their "progressive ideas.” Conservatives tend to be unaware of or hostile to recent shifts in the larger culture" (p. 130-131). To them our approach to the faith has "led to a severe disconnection between doctrine and life" (p. 122).

The closing chapter, on the church as "a refugee movement" seeks to convince members of the Church of Christ to accept a denominational status; to back away from the Biblical name, "churches of Christ," to get more involved in the civil rights movement and to promote fellowship with our denominational neighbors. Before elders approve of this book being used in their adult Bible classes they should decide if they are ready to go where Foster and Holloway would like to take them.

John Waddey
E-Mail: JOHNWADDEY@aol.com
http://www.christianity-then-and-now.com

Tim Woodroof of Nashville has recently published a book entitled, A Church that Flies (A New Call to Restoration in the Churches of Christ). His theme is "the advocacy for change and for the discovery of new expressions of faith that represents the true restoration spirit" (p. 139). He seeks to help us "discover unconventional forms for refreshed religious expression" (p. 138).

His confession about his relationship with Churches of Christ is found on page 141: "To tell the truth, my heart knew something was wrong years before my head caught on. I have never been comfortable with the sectarian rhetoric of the ‘one true church.' Our exclusivism and isolationism seemed to me to stem from equal parts arrogance and insecurity." The reader of this volume will see a clear portrait of what the liberal change agents have in mind for the churches of our brotherhood. He will see just how far down the road the leading lights among them have already traveled. Bro. Woodroof is a well-educated man and a gifted writer. His advocacy of change is as eloquent as that of any man of their band. When the last shot has been fired and the smoke is cleared from the field of battle his name will be written large along side of Rubel Shelly, Lynn Anderson and Max Lucado. The question is, will it be on the list of those who were defeated or those who won the battle for the soul of the Churches of Christ?

His thesis is set forth on p. 9. "Central to this endeavor...is a willingness to...suggest it is possible to build a contemporary church that pleases God even if it does not look exactly like the church of the first or the nineteenth-century." He admits "Many of us are growing frustrated with a modern church that may look like the ancient church in the particulars but fails to function with anything like its power and life-changing dynamic. Some are beginning to ask whether it might be possible to be the Church of Christ today without the focus on forms that have become our hallmark?"

His intent is expressed on p. 18-19. "Some of us, reviewing the state of Churches of Christ at the dawn of the twenty-first century, are recognizing that drastic surgery is in order or else the patient may well expire on the table....For them the only kind of restoration worth pursuing has little to do with resuscitating ancient methods and much to do with recapturing an ancient vision of who God's people are and what business they are to be about. They no longer believe that the restoration of proper forms will ensure proper functioning in the church."

His liberal theology is reflected in the following lines. "It says, for example, that the church need not have either explicit mandate or permission for everything it wishes to do" (p. 25). Early on he declares "...I call into question our reliance on ‘pattern theology..." (p. 29). "(Antioch) Christianity clearly establishes there never was the ‘pattern' we have so vehemently asserted" (p. 143). "These Jewish Christians (Judaizers) were the first ‘patternists' of the Christian faith. They had discovered-–in those early, innocent years of the church in Jerusalem—a pattern for worshiping God..." (p. 162).

The goal of the change agents in general and Bro. Woodroof in particular is as follows: "That is a goal that has, I believe, the power to capture the children of the Restoration movement" (p. 21). These men are not content to transform their particular congregations into charismatic denominational churches. They see conquest and dominance of the entire brotherhood as their goal.

His contempt for the faith and worship of the church he grew up in and that his family has been part of is clearly expressed: "Clinging to old worship forms that cease calling us to a transforming experience of God in not ‘faithfulness.' Indeed, it represents a greater threat to the church than the worship ‘innovations' we have been taught to fear" (p. 71-72). The stand of our brethren on the following topics he labels as defense of mole-hills: Clerical titles, worship styles, organizational structures, our method of interpreting Scripture, the role of women, choirs, instrumental music, etc. (p. 120).

"Many of the practices and habits bequeathed to us by the church of our fathers have lost all connection to contemporary minds and hearts. Once-vivid forms, with the passing of time, have become dead ritual and mindless liturgy and instinctive tradition" (p. 135).

"The church must be constantly renovating its forms or innovating new forms that allow it to be God's living presence in this world" (p. 134).

He makes repeated, exaggerated or false criticisms of those preachers and churches who do not embrace his theology of change (p. 122). To him, our way of preaching and practicing the faith of Jesus is "beyond embarrassing. It is mortifying..."

As a well-trained false teacher is wont to do, he tries to disarm in advance anyone who would dare criticize his plan by shaming them into quietness. "Who can pay attention to the larger issues when policing the use of instruments requires such vigilance and concentration?" ( p. 123).

A major objective of these agents of change is to batter down our convictions regarding the use of instrumental music in worship. To do so they resort not to scripture arguments (those they don't have), but to special pleading. Their program is "a commitment to holiness and mercy and service. It has nothing to do with the musical forms we use in worship..." (p. 123-124).

Change agents like Bro. Woodroof are prone to unfounded assumptions. Note the following:

• The Jerusalem church "was a congregation shaped as much by Moses and the customs of Israel as by Christ" (p.162)

• "Jewish--Christian worship was virtually indistinguishable from the worship of orthodox Judaism" (p. 163)

• "When at last, God forced the hand of the Jerusalem church and scattered those first Christians abroad" (p. 163.

• The Holy Spirit had to "win from Peter the grudging concession" (emph. mine, jw) that Gentiles could be accepted into the church (p. 165).

• Speaking of Antioch, he says, "In this church we have the first specific record of kosher food laws being ignored...by the Jewish Christians" (p. 165).

• "Though we are told little about the manner in which the Antioch church worshipped, it is safe to assume that the forms used to express worship were drawn from their native culture rather than a Jewish one" (p. 165).

• James and the elders of Jerusalem (agreed) "Gentiles would still be permitted to practice a different ‘brand' of Christianity (emp. mine, jw). than Jerusalem Jews" (p. 171).

• He assumes that the Ebionites (heretics of the late first and second centuries) "differed little from many of the first Jewish believers who populated the church in Jerusalem" (p. 172).

• He assumes that David, on his own initiative, introduced instrumental music into the temple worship. He evidently is unfamiliar with II Chron. 29:25. Concerning those instruments, it says, "the commandment was of Jehovah by his prophets." But then, change agents are not known for their dependence on Scripture for their assertions.

His interpretation of the sins of Nadab and Abihu in offering the strange fire is remarkable. "The sin of Nadab and Abihu may have nothing to do with ‘innovations' or some departure from specifically commanded procedures. Rather, the text (Lev. 10) suggests that the sin involved here was treating God and their important duties casually, carelessly" (p. 208). This sounds much like the interpretation gays give for the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. Rather than homosexuality, they say it was their lack of hospitality that God punished. When a man is intoxicated with the wine of liberalism, everything he views is distorted.

As I pored over the pages of Bro. Woodroof's book I was impressed with the thought, "Herein is clearly demonstrated the mind of a liberal change-agent. Bold and brazen, he is unashamedly determined to destroy the church as we have known her and from the rubble build a new one in his own image." Read it to know what they have in mind. As you do so, "Keep thine heart with all diligence" (Prov. 4:23), because the message of the book is deadly poison.

John Waddey
E-Mail: JOHNWADDEY@aol.com
http://www.christianity-then-and-now.com

Is this the one that preaces at Otter Creek in Nashville or is it his father? Thanks.

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(Source: http://www.newleafbooks.org/BOOKS/C/church_flies.html)

Tim Woodroof is a third generation preacher in Churches of Christ. He has ministered with congregations in Nebraska, Oregon, and Tennessee. He presently preaches for the Otter Creek Church of Christ in Nashville. He is also the author of Walk This Way (1999), a study of the Sermon on the Mount.
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Otter Creek Church of Christ
5253 Granny White Pike
Nashville, Tennessee 37220 United States
E-mail Address: ottrcrk.aol.com
Web Site Address: http://www.ottercreek.org
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THINGS YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT “A Church That Flies” [Otter Creek] and
Tim Woodroof’s Message: A New Call to Restoration in the Churches of Christ
(Source: http://www.ottercreek.org)
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MINISTRY TEAM

Vicki Atnip Administrative Assistant for the Youth & Children's Ministries
Melanie Brown, Associate Children's Minister
Janet Crothers, Children's Minister
Kay Duncan, Bookkeeper
Trina Gehl, Communications Coordinator
Scott Owings, Minister of Spiritual Formation
Emma Phillips, Administrative Assistant
Lee Ann Rice, Church Administrator
David Rubio, Youth Minister
Steve Sherman, Missionary in Residence
Brandon Scott Thomas, Music Minister
Tim Woodroof, Senior Minister

Major Responsibilities of the Music Minister

• Leading the Body in worship that is designed to glorify Jesus, & be transformative for the Church
• Serving the 60+ people involved in the music ministry in a pastoral nature by leading, encouraging, and equipping
• Planning for major events (musicals, concerts, plays) surrounding Christmas & Easter
• Organizing and executing our Summer Life Series. This includes special speakers, concerts, family event nights & evenings highlighting VBS & Camp
• Encouraging a broader spectrum of Churches and the community through the ZOE Worship ministry (National and local seminars and worship recordings)

A word from Brandon ... It's that excitement that fuels me to go and share on a more national level with ZOE.



Major Responsibilities of the Senior Minister

• Ministers the Word through preaching, teaching, and writing
• Leads the Ministry Team to encourage focused, effective efforts
• Works with elders on visioning and planning
• Facilitates communication and problem-solving with congregation
• Counsels on spiritual, marital, and pre-marital issues
• Encourages a wider range of Christians through speaking, writing, and holding conferences

A word from Tim ... The validity of my wider work (writing, speaking) is rooted in an authentic ministry here at Otter Creek.

ELDERS

[The Senior Minister and the Ministry Team “must increase” and we, the elders, “must decrease.” There is a web page for each of the ministry team members with pictures and detailed job specifications and other information. There is not a single page for any or all of us, the elders of the congregation—some web formatting of the Change Movement era that is similar to those of a number of transformed churches of Christ. We work with humility behind the scenes. Hopefully, one of these days, we’ll occupy even half of a page that lists all the elders’ names—even without pictures and telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. (by Donnie Cruz)]

From what I can see from Mr. Waddey's review adn the comments from the Otter Creek Church of Christ website is that this is the kind of church that Madison wants to turn into.

I guess my question is this, why doesn't Otter Creek get as much attention as Woodmont Hills?

Does anyone know how to reach Trina Gehl? I am a childhood friend and have been unable to reach her. Thanks, Leslie

VOICES OF CONCERN WERE VOICES OF CHANGE


Forty years ago a diabolic attack on the Lord's church was published under the title Voices of Concern. The editor of the volume was Robert Meyers, then minister of the Riverside Church of Christ in Wichita, KA. The contributing authors were men and women once connected with the Church of Christ, who had separated from it. It was published and distributed by Carl Ketcherside's Mission Messenger of St. Louis. The 17 articles ranged from bitter tirades against the church, her message and her people by those who had rejected the Scripture as their authority, to the pitiful meanderings of the ignorant and confused. Since there was a general pattern observable in all of the writings, the following review as applicable to all.


THE MESSAGE OF THE CONTRIBUTORS CONSIDERED

1. They were convinced that the Church of Christ is thoroughly legalistic. "...the object of Church of Christ concern is all too often a God of legalism rather than a God of love..." (Charles Warren, p. 200). "The scriptures were ...not written to be complete descriptions of anything or blue prints" (p. 39). "Why should the church of the twentieth century want to be like the one of the first? (p. 40). "This system (legalism j.w.) is a code of requirement, or what is often called "the plan of salvation" (p. 41). "Legalism sees sin as a violation of the written code" (p. 41). (All the above quotes are from J. P. Sanders). What he really means is, he objects to the command, "if any many speak, let him speak as the oracles of God" (I Pet. 4:11). Also he resents the fact that "sin is the transgression of the law" (I John 3:4).
   
   
2. They rejected the Bible as the verbally inspired Word of God. Nine of them expressed their loss of confidence in the Bible as a work of divine perfection. "I came to realize that rather than making the Bible alive, the verbal inspiration theory was killing the message of the Bible" (Logan Fox, p. 19). Even after his loss of faith, Bro. Fox continued to circulate among our churches.
   
   
3. They felt that, "The Church of Christ should admit the reality of their denominational status and humbly confess the possibility that they might be wrong in belief and practice" (Ralph V. Graham, p. 140).
   
   
4. They insisted that we should give up the idea of trying to restore New Testament Christianity. "Restorationism as advocated by the Churches of Christ is unhealthy...as a way of life." "Restorationism is irrelevant to man's needs" (Graham, p. 139).
   
   
5. They argued that we should cease to object to the use of instrumental music in worship. According to them, " while it is most likely that the first church did not use instruments of music in their worship, (they are) not convinced on that account that it is wrong" (Wm. Reedy, p. 241).
   
   
6. They insisted that the Church of Christ inhibited their intellectual inclinations. "The free man questions, tries, tests. He acknowledges no authority to which he does not freely consent as internalized truth. He is subject to no control above his own conscience. He does not obey because it is commanded, but because it is the way of truth and wisdom" (N. L. Parks, p. 80-81). "I did not have the feeling of personal security to enable me to speak freely of my doubts and growing disbeliefs" (Cecil Franklin), p. 78).
   
   
7. They resented being pressured for their changing attitudes. "Looking back, I can see clearly how my studies, working experiences and association with believers of different denominations led me...into a ...broader Christian commitment than the restricted liberty afforded me in the Churches of Christ. Being quite outspoken in my preaching, talk, and writings, I found the restrictions placed on my freedom of expression intolerably frustrating. I and my congregation became subjected to the West Berlin type of isolation because of my views." (Graham, p. 129-130).
   
   
8. They wanted to stay and help us see and accept their new found light, and were sad that they could not do so. "I have felt that if I am right and they are wrong, then instead of leaving them, I should share with them what I believe" (Fox. p. 25). "This book pleads with the Church of Christ to spare such men the agony of separation by creating an atmosphere in which independent minds may feel at home" (Meyers, p. 2).
   
   
9. According to them, we should join the movement for ecumenical unity. "They should be willing to let consensus of rational opinion of all Christian scholars of whatever church and age be the decisive factor in matters of interpreting the Bible" (Graham, p. 141).
   
   
10. They wanted us to believe they all love us and sincerely want to save us from our self-destruction. "I have no intention of leaving them so long as one of the churches is free enough to hear such compassionate strictures as fill the pages of this book" (Meyers, p. 262). Their hope was that this book would "so alter conditions that no other volume of this kind would ever need be written." (back dust cover). "Viewed sociologically or scripturally, the Church of Christ is not the church of Christ. Its members in a sense are neither ‘Christian only' nor ‘the only Christians'" (Parks, p. 84). "The church of Christ appears then as a lower middle class phenomenon ‘on the make' at the socio-economic level" (Parks p. 73).
    
    
11. We should be frightened because, according to them, almost all of our young intellectuals were leaving us and thousands of our members were clamoring for a change. "Many in the church of Christ are completely unaware of how many intelligent, compassionate Christian men and women have departed from them in search of freedom from dogma" (Meyers, p. 2). "Thousands are restless and dissatisfied with the aridity of exclusivism and authoritarianism" (Meyers, p. 3).
    
    
12. We were already suffering from an incurable disease and they predicted we would soon be completely out of business. "There are many indications that the Church of Christ is showing signs of decadence and that it is running a marathon race with catastrophe...there is little manifest interest by those from without" (Carl Etter, p. 110). Etter's prediction was originally made in 1945. "Our system has had its day and we are even now, poised between two worlds" (Meyers, p. 261).
    
    
13. They hoped that we would not seek to answer their charges, but accept them and adjust accordingly. "Those who read the contributions with a spirit of retaliation will miss its very tenor and mistake its real purpose" (back dust cover).
    

OUR REACTION TO VOICES OF CONCERN

Considering the above, those familiar with God's word and loyal to it would agree that Voices of Concern are Voices of Apostasy! These people are apostates, like Judas who betrayed Christ; like Phygellus and Hermogenes who turned away from the apostle; like Demas who forsook Paul, like Hymenaeus and Alexander who blasphemed; like Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who concerning the truth have erred...whose words eat like gangrene; and a host of others who went astray down through the years.

"They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they went out that they might be made manifest that they all are not of us" (I John 2:19). We should not be overly concerned because apostates have criticisms to make of the Lord's church.

Can we really expect them to have a favorable attitude towards that which have rejected? A guilty conscience compels them to discredit the church and its ministers, to somehow justify themselves and ease their sense of shame. Instead of being a great tragedy that they left us, we are much better off that they did. "For there must be factions among you that they that are approved may be made manifest among you" (I Cor. 11:19). Now we see their true colors! We should be most concerned about those who are still among us as traitors and subversives (Acts 20:29-31).

In reading the book, it is obvious that almost all of the contributors lost their faith in the Bible as the inspired Word of God and absolute authority in Christianity. This happened before their exodus. Nine of the seventeen writers frankly states or implied their rejection of this fundamental doctrine. This is well illustrated in their complaints and charges. Virtually none of them are substantiated by scriptural proof. Few Biblical reference adorns the pages of this book. I note some 28 references or allusions in its 263 pages.

Like the sectarians of the past, they had a burning, unyielding desire to make the church of Christ into a denomination such as they had gone into. Misery loves company.

Their smug assurance that the church of Christ, as it had existed for the last 200 years, was finished was humorous. Especially since in the same year in which their book was published, a news release announced that the Church of Christ was the fastest growing body in the country. No doubt there were bitter tears when they were confronted with this information. One is led to wonder how a poor, ignorant, legalistic bunch, as they describe us, managed to effect such a thing?

Editor Meyers claimed to be a minister of the Church of Christ. His production and encouragement of this diabolic attack on the Lord's church, the inspiration of the Bible and the doctrine of Christ marked him as one who bid them Godspeed and was thus a partaker of their evil deeds (II John 11). He was a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Carl Ketcherside's endorsement and praise of this book pointed out his true inclination. He desired to stay among us and wear the same name, but he had long since departed from the principle of restoring New Testament Christianity.

It is interesting to note the repeated references of the writers to their class as the most brilliant, intelligent and sensitive among us. Assuming their judgment to be right, I summon Paul to express the divine observation, "Behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh...are called; but God choose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise...that no flesh should glory before God" (I Cor. 1:26-29). No doubt this must be one of those areas where they had discovered the Bible to be errant!

Looking about, I wonder, where are the thousands who were waiting for the chance to grab their new liberal posture? Some of Carl Ketcherside's disciples went go that route. The Christian Churches were going that way. An occasional congregation among us has been subverted by men like those of this book. However, I fear their "thousands" was a wishful dream of their apostate minds.


ADMONITIONS FOR MY BRETHREN

• We should profit from the criticisms of this book. Negative preaching must be balanced with the positive and constructive message of the gospel. Doctrinal righteousness, to the neglect of the practical righteousness, is of the same category as faith without works.
  
  
• Cold, lifeless, ritualistic worship is not the New Testament kind. A warm and genuine spiritual love must fill our lives and worship.
  
  
• Smugness, self-righteousness and a refusal to listen, consider and study with those who have questions should not be our practice. Sometimes we show a lack of genuine interest and concern for those who have doubts. Some of them might possibly be salvaged if someone cared enough to teach them the way of the Lord more perfectly (Acts 18:26).
  
  
• The charge of political maneuvering and undue power being exercised by some few in the church must be frankly considered and corrected. Service must be the measure of greatness (Matt. 20:26).
  
  
• The fact that most of these men are graduates of Christian Colleges should be sufficient warning to the administrators that there might be a serious deficiency in the methods, manner and content of their Bible education program. "Take heed to thyself and they doctrine" (I Tim. 4:16), is a timely warning.
  
  
• Remember, many of these men have been connected with the teaching staffs of our schools, or desired to be. We must beware. We cannot allow the death shroud of "academic freedom" settle over our schools and shield those who would corrupt the faith of our students..
  
  
• All of these men had educational experiences at state or sectarian schools of higher learning. Educational degrees are no assurance of the soundness and quality of a preacher. Even a degree from our schools is no guarantee.
  Know the man, know what he believes; first hand, before he is employed
  
  
• Five of these men left the Lord's church for the Christian Churches. Is this not because of a weakness in teaching and attitude on our part, concerning the Christian Churches? They are not our brethren! Surely a hundred years is enough for the Lord to remove their candlestick (Rev. 2:5). They have progressed to a full denominational stance. They admit this. We have no more in common with them than we do with other Protestant bodies. There is far more between us than an instrument of music! The authors of this book seemingly never learned that lesson. We need more instruction noting the differences between us and that body of people.
  
  
• They would liked to have stayed among us and shared their new found faith (or lack there of) with us. This should serve as a warning to the brotherhood today. Some who no longer share our faith are yet among us. They are spreading their error among our people. I "tell you even weeping that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is perdition! (Phil. 3:18-19a).
  

That which was a small problem 40 years ago is now a major problem. The unbelief of those voices of concern has now spread across the face of our brotherhood. Today's agents of change are the lineal descendants of those past apostates. The objections of this book are synonymous with those of our promoters of change. Now, rather than departing, they are strongly entrenched among us. Brethren, we are under siege. Turning our heads or closing our eyes will not save us. The lines must be clearly drawn. Acting now will save us the disaster of a major apostasy and schism. Weakness, procrastination and compromise will be catastrophic. Better to lose a few apostates now than many later-on.

John Waddey

COME TO THE TABLE (A Review)

Dr. John Mark Hicks is professor of theology at David Lipscomb University. His Ph.D. is from Westminster Theological Seminary. In this book, he has given us the latest chapter in the ever- evolving "change" theology that has captivated many of our young intellectuals. The book is the result of his "revisioning" the Lord's Supper. His thesis is, "Their supper (that of the early church) was home-based, a full meal with food and drink, and interactive fellowship at a table and characterized by joyous celebration" (p. 9). To put the book in proper context, readers should note that Dr. Hicks was active in a "Community Church" experiment while living in Memphis. Currently he is closely associated with Dr. Rubel Shelly and the Woodmont Hills Family of God in Nashville. That church served as his laboratory for testing his new concept of communion. When one has read this book he may well agree that Dr. Hicks and those of his kindred in the "change brotherhood" are much like the ancient Athenians. They "spend their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing" (Acts 17:21).

In general, the book is reflective of Hick's training and station as a theologian. In terms of readability and comprehension, this means that the average disciple, not trained in theological jargon, will not fathom a good 80 percent of what he says. The author is also a university professor. Readers will find his method and style dull and repetitious. For slow readers, or those loathe to read such materials, they can read his concluding chapter wherein he summarizes his twelve points for revisioning the Lord's Supper.

• In that he repeats his thesis that the "supper is a table rather than an altar" (p. 185). He evidently has us confused with the Catholic Church for it is their priests who observe the sacrifice of the mass. Our brethren have never done so.
  
  
• He insists that the "Lord's supper is a meal eaten at a table," not just "bread and wine" but a meal. "It is not the Lord's ‘snack' but the Lord's supper," he says (p. 186). By this he means we should have a dinner meal with the usual provisions and then commune while thus engaged in the dining experience. Some folks read, "he took a cup" and insist that the communion wine must be served in that which has a handle. Some read "table" and insist that there must be a sit down table in order to commune. Strange, unfounded thinking.
  
  
• To Dr. Hicks, the Supper is "more than a mere symbol. It is a genuine communion with God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit. God is present at the table" (p. 187). In this he is remarkably close to Luther's notion that the emblems become the real flesh and blood of Jesus when taken.
  
  
• The supper should be "a time for sharing, prayer and conversation about what God has done for us... (p. 188). Earlier he calls it a "Jubilee festival" (p. 63). He would have it observed with "resounding jubilation or enthusiastic outbursts" (p. 97).
  
  
• He likes to say that we have "evoked images of blood and gore at the supper and participants feel guilty if they do not concentrate on the cross and Christ's death as they eat and drink" (p. 189). Paul, who did not have the privilege of studying at a modern seminary, taught that the Lord ordained bread and fruit of the vine to be taken in remembrance of his body and blood. In so doing we proclaim the Lord's death. He taught that eating and drinking the emblems in an unworthy manner would make us, "guilty of the body and blood of the Lord" (I Cor. 11:23-29). But Dr. Hicks believes that the supper is "focused on the resurrection of Jesus rather than the death of Christ" (p. 189).
  
  
• According to Hicks, the church should "revision the supper as a socio-ethical witness through shared food" (p.189). He sees it as "an example of economic ethics" as "the meal served the poor in the Christian community" (p. 190) and those of the world as well. "The church...should invite the poor, the disenfranchised and the outsider to share food with them as a witness to the grace of God" (p. 190).
  
  
• To Hicks, we should revision the supper as a moment of inclusiveness that transcends all cultural, ethnic and gender boundaries" (p. 191). Already we commune with any Christian man or woman of any race or station in life. But he means more. He wants the women to participate in the teaching and serving related to the observance of the supper. He faults those churches where "only men may serve the table" (p. 79).
  
  
• Bro. Hicks tells us, "At the table we ...we mutually pledge to "be there" for each other...we mutually commit to give our lives for each other..." (p. 191). This is one of the many new discoveries Dr. Hicks has made regarding the Lord's Supper. But he did not find them in the Bible.
  
  
• We should "revision the supper as the participation of all except the rebellious." By "all" he means whether they are Christians or not. Only rebellious sinners should not be invited. They need not even be believers in Christ. He reasons, "we do not exclude guests from singing, hearing the gospel or giving, and neither should we exclude them from the table" (p. 192). Per his logic even Hindus and Buddhists and others should share the holy feast just so they are not rebels to God.
  
  
• Per this book, we should "revision the supper as a family event, including children." "They are on the journey of faith, and the supper will shape the growth and development of that faith" (p. 192). If this logic be correct, would not baptism also be a learning event to shape the growth and development of children's faith? If not why?
  
  
• Dr. Hicks acknowledges that his plan is "difficult because it creates dissonance between ourselves and our immediate heritage. It is difficult because its implementation is fraught with logistic, practical and communal problems" (p. 194). And we would add it is fraught with Biblical problems. But such means little to the promoters of change who have already displaced Biblical authority with their own standards. It is also certain to cause strife and division when men try to implement such practices among those who know and love the Truth of God.
  
  
• Jesus asked "When the son of man cometh will he find faith in the earth?" (Lk. 18:8). Hicks has a different version. He asks, When the Son of Man returns, "Will he find a church sitting at table with each other, sharing their food, embodying the values of the gospel, and waiting for the Messianic banquet?" (p. 195).
  

In general, the reader will note that Dr. Hicks employs a new brand of hermeneutics to reach his conclusions. For example, he seems to make no distinction between the Old and New Covenants. He sees the O.T. festivals as a communion service and thus we are to model our Lord's Supper after them (p. 47). "Eating the Lord's Supper is analogous to eating Israel's sacrifices" (p. 47). He finds Christ sharing communion with people before he instituted the Lord's Supper. For every passage that speaks of Christ eating with anyone is, according to him, part of the communion story. Of course since the text does not imply his conclusions, he assures us it is found in the "theological meaning." "The table during Jesus ministry continues in the church when his disciples gather at the table. Jesus' table etiquette is kingdom etiquette..." (p. 63). The new hermeneutic even allows him to make the meal eaten by Paul and the hungry, storm-tossed mariners a communion (p. 201). Why has it taken the world so long to discover this new system? Another discovery is that "the Lord's Supper...was not a mere corporate worship ritual, but the daily experience of worship...in a community of disciples who ate their "common" food together" (p. 91). He also finds it acceptable to describe the supper as "sacraments" (p. 104).

As change agents are wont to do, he first reaches his conclusion then looks for supporting facts to prove his case. It seems not to bother him that to do so he must compare apples with oranges. For example, Jesus provided fish and bread for the five thousand (Luke 9:10-17), therefore we should have a meal for communion (p.57-58). Since those meal stories are the "theological basis" for communion, would it bother the author if someone proposed buttermilk and cornbread with our communion? While one of the first principles of the change gospel is that there is no pattern for the faith, worship, organization and work of the church, Dr. Hicks quotes with approval, criticism of folks like us for not returning to the "New Testament patterns" he thinks he has found (p.137). Contrary to most change agents, the author appeals to the law of silence to prove his point, but only in reference to the Didache, an uninspired document from the early church. Regarding the document's reference to the Lord Supper, Hicks notes, "Strikingly absent is any reference to the body and blood of Christ, or the traditional words of institution..."(p. 130).

Those brethren who cannot see or hear evil in the doctrines of the change agents, should know that in Hicks' view "the essence of the modern supper (our communion, jhw) is suspect because it has lost its table... (meal) form" (p. 121). "(T)he modern church dangerously distorts the supper..." (p. 126).

A similar view of the supper had arisen in the church in Corinth. In his rebuke of their practice, Paul asked, "What have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? Or despise ye the church of God..." (I Cor. 11:22). For those who know God's Word and love and respect it, the simple noting of Dr. Hicks' teaching on the sacred Supper is sufficient to demonstrate his faulty thinking. Perhaps you will agree that it is truly amazing what a fellow can learn at a seminary!

John Waddey

I'm sorry to say that I must disagree with you, Mr. Waddey.

Dr. Hicks teaches Theology of the Church and Systematic Biblical Doctrine, as well as Psalms, Deuteronomy, and other Bible classes (not just theology, as you previously stated), and he does a fine job of each.

The followers of Christ didn't sit in silence and bow their heads while passing around a little tray of matzo crackers or little discs of unleavened bread while sipping little cups of grape juice. The communion service described in the New Testament is not that small. You see it described almost everywhere as "breaking bread" and as "a feast". Most people that I know don't consider a quarter inch piece of cracker as a feast. Perhaps you do, but I don't know.

The verse that the church of Christ uses as the time of observance is Acts 20:7. I've seen so many posts on here that say things are taken out of context; however, this is one that seems to be MORE out of context than just about anything else I've seen. The ultracons want to do what they always do -- take out the part of the verse that defends their cause and throw the rest out. The WHOLE verse says, "On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight." Now, if that means we have to take communion every week, then whoever's preaching better keep on going until midnight, or we're disobeying the "direct command" central to the church of Christ dogma!

As for younger people (and the unbaptized) taking part in the Lord's Supper, what's actually wrong with it? There's nothing in the Bible that says the disciples or members of the church had to be baptized before they could partake.

Just because it's a church of Christ tradition does not make it Godly or right.

The Meaning of the Fellowship Meal

John Mark Hicks: Several features characterize the fellowship meals of Israel. First, it is a moment of communion between God and his people. God eats with his people as the fat is burned to him. God is present at this meal. It is eaten before the Lord as if God sits at the table with the worshipper. Thus, worshippers eat with assurance, thanksgiving and confidence as they experience communion with God in this meal. God comes to the table with his people as he calls them to a table to experience his communion.

It is a fact that Jesus fired the Doctors of the Law: they were so BLIND that they thought that the SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM would continue. Therefore, John Hicks is consistent with the REST OF THE BAND in attempting to make EVERYTHING CHRISTIAN into everything PRE-CHRISTIAN.

I don't know where John got the VISIONARY REVELATION that Paul compared the Lord's Supper to the SACRIFICIAL festivals of Judaism. These sacrifices were based on their LOSTNESS having repudiated God and been turned over to a NATIONAL festival. However, the FAT was for the Levitical priests. As Bruce White Judaizes with the PRIESTS demanding TITHES most of the TROUBLERS attempt to define their PATTERNISM by repudiating the sacrifice of Christ:

For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Ro.14:17

The VISION of the Lord's Supper as feeding God denies the fact that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ has ended all sacrifices and symbols. The praise or fruit of the lips has REPLACED literal sacrificial meals.

THE ORIGIN IN BABYLON: NOT IN THE BIBLE

The idea of FEEDING, clothing, housing, singing to and having sex with him/her is raw end-time Babylon Harlot Worship. Because of ISRAEL'S "sitting DOWN to eat and RISING UP TO PLAY in musical idolatry, God TURNED them over to worship the pagan "gods." Therefore, the FIRST attempt to share their TABLE with their god had them SHARING FOOD WITH DEMONS.

"On the assumption that he is to be identified with the Philistine god, Lagrange thinks the idea is derived from the special prerogative of Beelzebub as fly-chaser (chasse-mouche). In the Babylonian epic of the deluge, "the gods gather over the sacrificer like flies" (see Driver, Genesis, 105). It was easy for the heathen Semites, according to Lagrange, to come to conceive of the flies troubling the sacrifice as images of spirits hovering around with no right to be there; and so Beelzebub, the god who drove away the flies, became the prince of demons in whose name the devils were exorcised from the bodies of the possessed.

THIS IS WHERE THEY ASSUMED THAT A SPIRIT GOD WOULD EAT WITH THEM EVEN IN "COMMUNION."


I appointed a sacrifice on top of the mountain peak'
Seven by seven I arranged the sacrificial vessels;
Beneath them I piled reeds, cedar wood, and myrtle.
The gods smelled the savor,
The gods smelled the sweet savor.
The gods above the sacrificer collected like flies.


When at length the queen of the gods drew near,
She raised the great bows which An at her wish had made.
"O ye gods, as I shall not forget the jewel of my neck
These days I shall not forget--to eternity I shall remember!
Let the gods come to the SACRIFICE,

http://www.piney.com/GilgameshFlood2.html

Ken, I broke down and bought this book: it just grasps verses and NARRATES a theology of the Lord's Supper right out of vapors. I am ashamed that people will PAY to be misled.

Jeremy, I think that you are just a SEED PICKER: but the message will get through WITH your help.

Jesus sent the Apostles/Evangelists OUT to preach the Gospel. He didn't send them out to make CANAANITES or CAINITE worshipers. He said to:

MAKE DISCIPLES by
Baptizing AND Teaching what had been taught

Peter DID this by telling ALREADY-BELIEVERS to repent AND be baptized AND

Jesus said MY WORDS are SPIRIT and LIFE (John 6:63)

Receiving A holy spirit or A clear conscience or CONSCIOUSNESS meant A co-perception given to DISCIPLES. ALL of the history of baptism proves that one simply COULD NOT be an unbaptized DISCIPLE

Proseltes and TRADE DISCIPLES clearly understood this to mean that the MASTER fabric washer (baptizer) would NEVER teach you his trade secrets or MYSTERIES until you had been baptized to become HIS student "like a little child."

Now, we have it: A DISCIPLE is a BAPTIZED believer who has turned from the OLD TRADE (an unbaptized guitarIST was excluded from the church of Christ in the Apostolic Constitutions written under the name CHURCH OF CHRIST about a.d. 205). They have gained CITIZENSHIP in the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus ADDED those being SAVED by obedience at BAPTISM to the CHURCH or SYNAGOGUE which is HIS BODY and His kingdom.

A DISCIPLE is a student of Christ. Therefore, we need to show you FROM THE BIBLE that Paul as a PREACHER dialoged or communed with his STUDENTS: he did not lecture out of his training in THEOLOGY OF CHURCH--whatever that means in commercial religio.

The DISCIPLES were identified as CHRISTIANS at Antioch as a major sender of evangelists--OUT.

Jesus Christ and the Bible clearly show that ONLY baptized believers are identified as CHRISTIANS. Even Max Lucado has to confess that the Bible knows of NO unbaptized "believer."

The very meaning of baptism FOR the remission of sins means that the apprentice "striking to BECOME a Tentmaker" would be grouped with the presumptious insane if he said: "I don hav ta be BAPTIZED: God gave me the GIFT and exempted ME from needing to be a STUDENT since God has predestinated me to salvation."

Believer's baptism REJECTS the ONCE sacrifice of Christ which, they hallucinate, was ONLY for the JEWS. "Now, God PREDESTINATES me to be SAVED: Now, HE must come (as in the Mass) and DIE ALL OVER AGAIN just for me so the MEMBERS will ADD me to the church." Believer's Baptism is a pagan baptism, repudiates the CROSS of the first century and identifies those who HAVE FAITH by believing the WORDS OF GOD as "A SATANIC CULT."

Jesus promised to EAT and DRINK with the disciples IN THE KINGDOM which is the HEAVENLY REALM of those ADDED to the church.

Heb 12:18 For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
Heb 12:19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:
Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
Heb 12:23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven , and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect ,
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. Col.1:18
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, Re.1:5
Heb 12:24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
Heb 12:25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:

Teleios (g5046) tel'-i-os; from 5056; complete (in various applications of labor, growth, mental and moral character, etc.); neut. (as noun, with 3588) completeness: - of full age, man, perfect.

The early CHURCH obeyed the direct command of Jesus: their HYMNING or PSALMING was TO GOD and not a SEEKER-SUCKER-STRATEGY. They went into PRIVATE PLACES to eat the Lord's Supper and considered the WATCHERS unworthy to enter into the "most holy place" alone with God. I am afraid that the THRILLS AND CHILLS are to REAP worship for the INSTITUTION and the PERFORMING CLERGY (women presiding OVER with a TUNE) which is assuredly NOT a synagogue of Christ.

The ARIANS were the first to make singing men and women into a PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION as an "evangelistic" tool to DENY that Jesus was God made manifest. I truly believe that OUTING theatrical performance to replace Lord Jesus Christ as the IN PRIVATE or IN SPIRIT Mediator in the quiet and dark Most Holy Place of OUR SPIRITS made perfect. John Mark Hicks and the other Judaizers trying to turn it into a JUBILEE simply has been BLINDED by the light of Jesus as PROPHESIED and therefore peddles STRONG DELUSIONS. It HAS NO relationship to A church of Christ. When God POURS OUT HIS SPIRIT in WRATH, He makes people into BUFFOONS speaking gibberish.

Ken

Dear Bro. Jeremy:

Thank you for taking time to write and share with me your thoughts about communion.

First of all I remind you that my review was not a discussion of which courses Dr. Hicks teaches at Lipscomb University, but of the ideas he has set forth in his book, "Come to the Table."

Second by simply calling me or other brethren "ultracons" meaning ultra conservatives, you do not establish your case. Only if you can substantiate your ideas by God's Word will it stand. If it is based only on your feelings, human reasoning, denominational practices, etc. it will not stand the test.

Third the point of discussion about the scriptural way to commune is not whether we drink fruit of the vine from one cup or many, nor is it whether the cups are small or large. The only salient point is why do we drink? Jesus said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me" (I Cor. 11:25). Nowhere do we read that Christ taught, nor that early Christians understood it to be part of a common meal on a festive occasion. That is where human thinking runs contrary to God's revealed will. The size of the piece of bread we eat in the memorial is not the point of issue. If a congregation wished to have a large quantity of bread so all could have a bigger bite, there would be no criticism. But if you partake to fill you belly, you would have missed the point of the communion. After eating the Passover supper Jesus instituted the sacred memorial (Luke. 22:20). Paul rebuked the Christians in Corinth because they were mixing the communion with their common meals. He asked, "What have ye not houses to eat and to drink in" or despise ye the church of God..." (I Cor. 11:20-22). Being a memorial, whether we eat and drink a little or a lot, is not the point. The point is are you doing it for the prescribed purpose?

Your treatment of Acts 20:7 reveals much about you and your thinking. First you say "the church of Christ uses" this verse for the time of their observance. This implies that you no longer consider yourself a part of the church of Christ.

Second you say we take it out of context. Perhaps you could explain from this text why the disciples assembled that day? Why did Paul tarry seven days before his departure from Troas? When they broke the bread that day, what did they do? What day is the first day? Is there a difference in eating food for the belly and partaking of the Lord's Supper? Is this distinction made where you worship?

You evidently do not think that weekly communion is necessary, or that communion should be limited to that day. Since such is the universal practice of churches of Christ and the early Christians, why do you not go to a church that observes it after that fashion? Many denominational bodies could be found with such a view.

Third, your statement that since Paul preached until midnight, we must do the same if we are going to commune on the first day. This reveals that you are in desperate need of a good course in Hermeneutics, i.e., to study and understand the Bible. Specifically you need to learn to discern between things that are incidental and things that are essential.

Your railing against church of Christ traditions proves nothing. No church of Christ has closed communion. We do not interrogate those who commune. Rather we follow the Scripture that says, "Wherefore let a man examine himself, and so let him eat..." (I Cor. 11:28). We base our belief that the communion is for those who are Christians on Luke 22:29-30 where the Master said, "I appoint unto you a kingdom...that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom..." The kingdom of Christ is his church (Matt. 16:18). The only table and eating that are part of the kingdom is the Lord's Supper. It is for those in his kingdom.

The tone and content of your letter reveal that you are already under the influence of those who are promoting unscriptural changes for the Lord's church. I suspect you don't even realize what it is they are leading you into. I plead with you as a brother in Christ not to allow your teachers to poison you against the church for which Christ died. That you will open the sacred book and fill your mind with those eternal truths and let them guide you as you serve the Master.

Yours in Christ,

John Waddey

Your response to this student is typical and reveals your desperate need of repentance and public confession. May God have mercy on you at the Judgement of Christ.

The church or ekklesia Jesus built was His kingdom or AREA OF RULE. His example and commands were to go preach and the LORD'S SUPPER more like PASSOVER prior to Babylon than John Mark Hicks claim that Paul had a SACRIFICIAL FEAST in mind where we lap up the fat with God. The PASSOVER was the sitting but the FITH CUP was the fulfillment that MESSIAH HAD COME: they did not engage in the drunken Babylonian Passover. The CUP was the CONTENTS and the TABLE was the setting. However,they did not EAT the original PASSOVER which involved REAL flesh and REAL blood. Therefore, the LORD'S SUPPER is something OTHER than eating to keep from starving Bruce White is apparently going to urge on the church. It was a MEMORIAL or REMEMBRANCE of the DEATH of Christ consumated in a LIVING LAMB and not a BROKEN BODY literally consumed.

The BROKEN BREAD symbolizes the BODY of Christ and the Fruit of the vine the BLOOD. Those who make it a REAL MEAL for eating the Lord's Supper with PORK BARBECUE in their teeth DENY that we EAT the BODY symbolically by the sop or "ground off bits" of BREAD. The EUCHARIST John Mark Hicks and the AGAPAE people promote implies EATING Christ or EATING FAT with God. Among the "scholars" who have confiscated our "colleges" there is an UNHOLY LUST to move on the OTHER side of the cross.

The Word ASSEMBLY IS

Sunagoge (g4864)soon-ag-o-gay'; from (the REDUPLICATE form of) 4863; an assemblage of persons; spec. a Jewish "synagogue" (the MEETING or the PLACE); by anal. a Christian EKKLESIA: - assembly, congregation, synagogue.

For if there come unto your SYNAGOGUE a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; Ja.2:2

Synagogue DOUBLES SUNAGO something like "Tom-Tom."

Acts19:41 And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the ASSEMBLY.

Ekklesia (g1577) ek-klay-see'-ah; from a comp. of 1537 and a der. of 2564; a calling out, i.e. (concr.) a popular meeting, espec. a religious congregation (Jewish synagogue, or Chr. community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both): - assembly, church.

Acts 20:1 AND after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the DISCIPLES, and embraced them, and departed for to go into Macedonia.

Bruce White speaks of US filling YOU with a burning "holy spirt." However, one is filled with the Spirit as one is filled with the WORD of Christ which we also EAT as His SPIRIT and LIFE. This is the act of a STUDENT and not a pagan being INITIATED into obscene fellowship by eating you don't want to know what.

Mathetes (g3101) math-ay-tes'; from 3129; a LEARNER, i.e. PUPIL: - disciple.

Acts 20:2 And when he had gone over those parts, and had given them much EXHORTATION, he came into Greece,

EXHORTATION again is what one does RATHER than stirring up the carnal senses OUTLAWED for the synagogue in Romans 15.

Parakaleo (g3807) par-ak-al-eh'-o; from 3844 and 2564; to CALL NEAR, i.e. INVITE, invoke (by imploration, hortation or consolation): - beseech, call for, (be of good) comfort, desire, (give) exhort (-ation), intreat, pray.

Acts 20:5 These going before tarried for us at Troas.
Acts 20:6 And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of UNLEAVENED BREAD, and came unto them to Troas in five days; where we abode SEVEN days.

Sunago (g4863) soon-ag'-o; from 4862 and 71; to lead together, i.e. collect or convene; spec. to entertain (hospitably): - / accompany, assemble (selves, together), bestow, come together, gather (selves together, up, together), lead into, resort, take in.
--------------------------
And upon the FIRST DAY of the week, when the disciples "SUNAGO" to break bread, Paul PREACHED unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight. Acts 20:7

They didn't SYNAGOGUE every day: they worked for a living. The ONLY reason for synagoguing on the FIRST DAY was to carry out the REMEMBRANCE of the passion of Christ. Paul tarried to teach them.

First, let's note that people do not assemble as STUDENTS in a SYNAGOGUE in order to eat a COMMON MEAL. The Lord's Supper is a way to show forth or PREACH the death of Jesus Christ. Because DOING CHURCH often meant travel and the need for food (no Shoneys, you know) people provided food for the group as they still do for extended gatherings.

JESUS SAID GO MAKE DISCIPLES, NOT WORSHIPERS. Paul's unique worship word is to GIVE HEED to the WORD. This is the only way to give heed to Jesus Christ.
.......Mathetes (g3101) math-ay-tes'; from 3129; a LEARNER, i.e. PUPIL: - disciple.

Now, listen up: the STUDENTS came together because they had been baptized to make them DISCIPLES. What do STUDENTS in the religious sense do? Why, they learn the Word of God which CANNOT be squeezed into sermons condemning and judging people who won't "worship" with instruments.
........THEY are thinking about a pagan worship center.
........Jesus and those in Troas were thinking about GOING TO BIBLE SCHOOL.
........Thomas Campbell called church A SCHOOL OF CHRIST.
........The Germans called it a SKUL

Therefore, you find almost no history of SINGING other than the Bible for hundreds of years.

There is little "WHEN IN CHUCH" description of a WORSHIP RITUAL which means the superstitious belief that if you obey the LAW OF SINGING God owes you something: at least He loses His right to burn you. The early assemblies were simple affairs of reading and studying the Word, singing Biblical songs to LEARN them, remembering Christ in the supper, listening to any learned person and providing for the poor or rather destitute. At its heart the synagogue was devoted to the WORD: the church continued to be that. I am not aware of any children meeting with these synagogues.

PAUL DIDN'T LEAD THE SINGING or take up a collection. Paul preached. But, Paul NEVER did what most preachers are trained to do to be skilled rhetoricians which were recognized in that period as of the SECTARIAN Hypocrites: speakers, sophists, singers or musicians. The teachers TEACH and do not lecture about US.

WHAT DID PAUL DO to meet the needs of the STUDENTS who assembled as a SYNAGOGUE OF CHRIST at the place of the ekklesia.

Dialegomai (g1256) dee-al-eg'-om-ahee; mid. from 1223 and 3004; to say thoroughly, i.e. DISCUSS (in argument or exhortation): - dispute, preach (unto), REASON (with), speak.

Paul discoursed about the word as a teacher would teach. But, he wouldn't teach FINANCIAL PLANNING in a BIBLE class. Nor would he bring in a "Music Team" to assist him in explaining baptism. The word also means the hard dialog by which even one who claimed inspiration in Corinth must submit his "songs" to another prophet. Because there were none of those in Corinth, Paul used his cutting method to tell everyone to sit down and shut up.

.......And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days REASONED with them out of the SCRIPTURES, Ac.17:2

If Paul had preached a cut and paste sermon believing that his construction had the power to MAKE SPIRITUAL CHANGES he would have been a traitor to the Spirit of Christ Which inspired the SCRIPTURES. You cannot PREACH in the rhetorician or sOPHISts (serpents) style without INTENDING to scramble the minds of the people so that they never "come to a knowledge of the truth."

And there were many lights in the UPPER chamber, where they were SUNAGO together. Ac.20:8

When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and TALKED a long while, even till break of day, so he departed. Acts 20:11

Homileo (g3656) hom-il-eh'-o; from 3658; to be in company with, i.e. (by impl.) to converse: - commune, talk.

And they TALKED TOGETHER of all these things which had happened. Lu.24:14

And it came to pass, that, while they COMMUNED together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them. Lu.24:15

LEARNING by a DISCIPLE never takes place at a LECTURE. Learning takes place when a good note taker "speaks to himself" and "meditates in the mind." Or, one discusses it with other students or the professor. Learning hasn't happened until DIALOG occurs and you can explain to others what you have learned.

The Bible, in most translations, speaks in a SPIRITUAL LANGUAGE. A "worshiper" even today doesn't care if it is an unknown dialect: they are out to rub their pleasure centers, get paid and get worshipped. However, one learns to PRAISE God by communing or dialoging or "singing" the Biblical material. They are FILLED with the spirit (word) of God and then "make melody" all week.

As John has noted, the church of Christ does not do an inquisition before allowing people to be their OWN Judges. T. Campbell got into trouble with the Presbyterians because he permitted Presbytrians of another SECT to take the Lord's Supper. The meaning of BAPTISM to the Baptists is to APPROVE them to eat the Lord's Supper. The Britannica notes that:

Quoted from the Britannica: "In other traditions within Protestantism the sacraments have become "ordinances," not channels of grace but expressions of faith and obedience of the Christian community. Among BAPTISTS the practice of "close communion" has RESTRICTED the ordinance to those who are baptized PROPERLY; i.e., as adults upon a profession of faith. The Society of Friends (Quakers) dropped the use of the Eucharist altogether in its reaction against formalism.

So, the seed picking has the universal theme: to FALSELY ACCUSE churches of Christ of what OTHERS are doing. This is the HEGLIAN DIALECT to try to use any means to make people UNHAPPY with their faith and practice SO that those who are TRULY CLOSED MINDED and CLOSED COMMUNION can infiltrate and divert. Jer, when the Baptists take over YOU will have to be purged of your CULT THINKING. You will have to endure the LAW until you cry "UNCLE." Then you will get a supernatural sign. You will then be ENDOCTRINATED and, if approved, BAPTIZED by having Jesus DIE AGAIN for your sins.

Ken

Contrary to the urge to JUDAIZE or rather PAGANIZE the Lord's Supper, Paul shows that it is not like the FESTIVAL at Mount Sinai where we see the MUSICAL IDOLATRY. Neither, is the Lord's Supper a Jewish sacrificial TABLE MEAL where GOD eats. Paul said that THEY have no right to EAT at the Lord's Altar. Assuredly no Christian would even WANT to eat at the sacrificial meals of those SACRIFICING types of Lord Jesus Christ.

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the SUFFERING of DEATH, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should TASTE DEATH for every man. Heb 2:9

For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Heb 2:10

For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all OF ONE: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, Heb 2:11

Saying, I will DECLARE thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I SING praise unto thee. Heb.2:12

Declare:
Apaggello (g518) ap-ang-el'-lo; from 575 and the base of 32; to announce: - bring word (again), declare, report, shew (again), tell.

Evangelists do not break down and have a JUBILATING fit when they EVANGELIZE. How can you tell the STORY of the Death of Jesus Christ and all that it meant with PORK BARBECUE in your teeth and the "children" spiritually uncovering themselves and women bringing MENSTRUAL blood to the altar?

Sing is:
Apalgeo (g524) ap-alg-eh'-o; from 575 and algeo , (to smart); to grieve out, i.e. become apathetic: - be past feeling

Paul said SPEAK the inspired TEXT and make the melody IN THE HEART. Melody is not a musical term but speaks of the TWANGING BOW of Apollo or the DESTROYER who appeared at the FEAST at Mount Sinai. Paul will use the RISING UP TO PLAY to repudate John Mark Hicks's view of the Lord's Supper as a TABLE FEAST WITH GOD.

And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. Heb 2:13

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same;
.....that THROUGH DEATH DESTROY he might destroy HIM that had the power of death, that is, the DEVIL; Heb 2:14

REMEMBERING THE body or SOMA preaches or show's forth that the DEATH of Jesus is what DESTROYED the DESTROYER who is Satan or Apollo who INSISTED on musical jubilation with the MUSES and INSTRUMENTALISTS performing the role of SORCERY. "Eating with the gods" is the Babylonian teaching that the SACRIFICES were to FEED the gods. Jesus said: "Remember my death, evangelize and agonize with me JUST ONE HOUR?"

And DELIVER them, who through FEAR of death were all their lifetime SUBJECT to BONDAGE Heb 2:15

For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the SEED of ABRAHAM. Heb 2:16

Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren , that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. Heb 2:17

The Lord's Supper is not to CELEBRATE our own senses but it is to remember that, in ways we do not understand, God DIED FOR OUR SINS. Yes, God can suffer and grieve over us.

Our Lord's Agony. Here is the BODY we are to WATCH with:

Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding SORRIFUL,even unto death: TARRY ye here, and watch with me. Matthew 26:38

Can you feature a Christian Disciple singing or clapping while Jesus was suffering in prayer or at the cross: the Levitical Musicians did it.

And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What,
.....could ye not WATCH with me ONE HOUR? Matthew 26:40

Jubilate at the COMMUNION of Christ's DEATH and suffering and you fulfill the MUSICAL MOCKING of Jesus as THEY caused His MURDER. Offenses must come but WOE to those who MUSICALLY MOCK the DYING JESUS as He TEACHINGS or EVANGELIZES WITH US and as his SONG is grieving out His death so that WE can DISCERN His literal body mocked, suffering and dying. Only then can we live a RESURRECTED life by making His SPIRITUAL body or church the kingdom of Christ.

Paul DID NOT compare the Lord's Supper to the sacrificial altar under the Law of Moses where we FEED and entertain God as in Babylon. Rather, he compared a NON-DISCERNING feast to the TABLE MEAL at Mount Sinai where they ROSE UP TO PLAY in John Mark Hicks "theology." Paul will say that THEY have no right to eat at OUR ALTAR and assuredly only Judaizers preach eating the LEGALISTIC Sacrificial meal which THEY DIDN'T EAT unless they were of Aaron: Jesus WAS NOT an Aaronic Priest nor a JEWISH PRIEST. Jesus Christ was the SACRIFICIAL LAMB offered up by the Jews or rather Kenites or Cainites or Canaanites.

Ken Sublett

Without doubt Max Lucado is the most widely published and read member of the Church of Christ in our generation. His many books have found a ready audience among members of evangelical bodies as well as ours. Bro. Lucado is also one of the principal spokesmen for those who wish to change the faith, worship and practice of our people. Change agents often say that it is those who have discovered "grace" that are no longer content to be bound by the faith of the past. Bro. Lucado's book, In the Grip of Grace, is a good demonstration of what these brethren mean by that statement. For those looking for a serious Biblical study of God's grace, this book will be a disappointment. It is more like cotton candy, filled with cute, catchy sayings that impress the impressionable who know little of God's Word. In his introduction he tells us that he discovered God's grace only after he found "there was a hole in (his) coat of convictions" (p. xii). He delights in sarcastic allusions to people like us. "If I read my Bible, have the right opinion on the right doctrines, if I join this movement..." (p. 12). This is a line from his portrait of those he classes as legalists. He goes on to describe those who strive to please God by obeying his will as having "a religious godlessness." (Ibid.). He paints us as boasting about our "five steps" (p. 6) while we stand "knee deep in the water" trying to save ourselves (p. 5).

Bro. L's concept of grace is so strong that if a man is "given only the testimony of creation, then he has enough" (p. 23). That means that some can be saved without knowing Christ, or the message of the Bible simply by "know(ing) God through he handiwork of nature" (Ibid.)

The book reaches its climax in chapter 16 which is entitled, Life Aboard the Fellow-Ship. With the analogy of a battleship, he describes what he perceives to be Christ's church. It is big enough to accommodate virtually any doctrine (p. 161). Paul did not understand this as does Bro. L. The apostle wrote that "ye all speak the same things and that there be no divisions among you" (I Cor. 1:10). Bro. L's boat can accommodate such interesting beliefs as "once saved always saved," predestination, premillennialism, speaking in tongues, clerical robes, etc. In explaining who is to be accepted on God's ship (church) he says, "The Master says examine the person's faith. If he or she has faith in Jesus and is empowered by God, grace says that's enough" (p. 168). "If their (members of denominations) trust, like yours, is in the all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ, aren't you covered with the same grace?" (p. 169). "God's ship is a grand vessel. Just as a ship has many rooms, so God's kingdom has room for many opinions..." (p. 170). The context makes it clear that he speaks of many different kinds of churches (denominations). This is identical to the old analogy about the vine and the branches used in days past to justify denominationalism. Defenders of that system quoted John 15 and said, Jesus is the vine and each denomination is a branch thereof.

Bro. Max Lucado continues to hold membership among churches of Christ. He preaches for the Oak Hills Church of Christ in San Antonio, TX. However the faith he holds and the views he expresses are quite different from those held by most of his brethren of this and past generations. It is easy to understand his popularity with those of the evangelical world, but it is a mystery that many within the Church of Christ see no problem with views such as cited above. Those who are unfamiliar with the message of Christ, who read and follow Bro. L's teaching, may well stand before God in judgment thinking that because they believed in Jesus, God's grace will save them. What a painful surprise it will be for them to hear Him say, "Not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 7:21).

John Waddey
Editor, Christianity Then and Now

Dr. Richard Hughes of Pepperdine University (formerly of Abilene Christian University) has written this history of our brotherhood. It is part of "the Praeger series of denominational studies" and the author willingly agrees that "...Churches of Christ comprised a denomination that erected its most fundamental self-understanding on claims that it was not a denomination" (p. 5). This assertion is repeated dozens of items throughout the book. Dr. Hughes tells us in his introduction, "I am a lifelong member of Churches of Christ but also an historian of American religion. Those two commitments have pulled at one another in a variety of ways... (as) this book has been in production. One's allegiance to one's own tradition always prompts one to tell only the good, to negate the bad, and to make the story look better than perhaps it really is. As an historian however, I had to resist that temptation..." (p. xiv). So complete was the historian's victory that Hughes found very little positive to report about us but a book full of negative, judgmental criticisms. As a history of a religious body, by one who is a member of it, the following attributes should be expected but are clearly absent: a sense of belonging; a sense of pride in what has been accomplished; a sense of respect and appreciation for those gone before. If this were a trial in a court of law, the author would be considered a "hostile witness." His book is a classic example of revisionist history.

The thesis of Dr. Hughes consists of the following points: that Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone founded a religious movement at the beginning of the 19th century; that the Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches more correctly represent that tradition; that Churches of Christ are a legalistic splinter of the Campbell-Stone movement that left the larger body at the turn of the 20th century; that for the first 150 years we were a sect, but since the 1950s we have graduated to denominational status. The author approaches his subject with a template created by denominational social historians, who know and care nothing for pure Christianity. He then forces every fact and every event into that narrow mold. Thus he concludes we were a sect and now a denomination (and in his estimation, a very poor example of that.)

Unintentionally, Dr. Hughes has done us a favor in writing his book.

• He shows just how pervasive the apostasy in our midst has become.
  
  
• He clearly demonstrates the role that Christian Schools, especially Abilene Christian
  University, have played in that development.
  
  
• He reveals the disdain, which the intellectuals of the change movement hold for Churches of Christ.
  
  
• He demonstrates the impact that secular schools, such as Harvard, have had on our Christian Schools.
  
  
• He states in unmistakable terms their estimate of the church of Christ as a human denomination and that they see it as the poorest of the evangelical denominations.
  
  
• In his estimation, all of those years when we grew by ten fold and sent the gospel around the world, we were but a miserable, narrow sect and now we have graduated into a real, bona fide, but pitiful denomination.
  
  
• He tells us what kind of indoctrination we can expect for our children when we send them to schools that have embraced this agenda.
  

It is interesting to observe the way Dr. Hughes discounts and downplays the knowledge, accomplishments and contributions of men of past generations, the latches of whose shoes he is unworthy to loose. From his perspective, every hero was overrated and misdirected and every roguitator was a hero, especially if his orientation was to the left. One is impressed that to him, the zenith of our history was the day when "Dr. Royce Money, president of Abilene Christian University, traveled to Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, TX to issue on behalf of Abilene Christian University a formal apology to African American members of Churches of Christ for the years of racial discrimination."... "We are here to today to confess the sins of racism and discrimination and to issue a formal apology to all of you, to express regret and to ask for your forgiveness (p. 138).

The author of this review has read most of the biographies and histories of the Restoration Movement's 200 year history. Not one of them is as negative and pessimistic as this volume. Even denominational historians, with their built-in antagonisms, have been more charitable in their assessment of us.

If the author had been an avowed enemy of the body of believers known as Churches of Christ, how different would his conclusions have been? Books like this make the enemies of Christ rejoice. The question that must be asked is: Why does a brilliant man like Dr. Hughes stay among a body of people for whom he holds such a low estimate?

Those who wish to read a sympathetic history written by one who loves the church and has faithfully served her, need to read, Search for the Ancient Order, in four volumes, by Dr. Earl West. Those who do so will be immensely rewarded. They may be ordered from the Gospel Advocate Co., P. O. Box 150, Nashville, TN 37202-1050 or from the Firm Foundation, P. O. Box 69, Damon, TX 77430-0069.

John Waddey
Editor, Christianity Then and Now

RICK ATCHLEY’S SPEECH AT THE RESTORATION UNITY FORUM*

Oct. 20-22, 2002 self-appointed representatives of Churches of Christ and Independent Christian Churches met in Lubbock, TX for their 20th annual assembly to promote unity among the two bodies. Among the many speeches presented was one by Rick Atchley, minister of the Richland Hills Church of Christ in Ft. Worth. I listened to the tape of his presentation and have before me a transcript of his speech. I say this lest anyone assume that I might have mis-heard or misrepresented him. Of the several prominent ministers of the church who have embraced the change movement, Bro. Atchley stands at the head of the list, along with Max Lucado and Rubel Shelly. The Richland Hills church is the largest congregation among us and no other is more fully committed to the change movement than is it. From his delivery at the Forum, it is evident that Bro. Atchley has the highest respect and regard for his peers in the Christian Churches. Not one word of criticism does he offer, not a single exhortation to make any adjustments or changes in their beliefs, worship or practice. On the other hand it is equally evident that he holds members of Churches of Christ who do not share his unity quest in utter contempt. Describing them, he says, “they’ve been mean, they are mean, and going to stay mean! And I think those people (meaning us)....you’re going to deal with some ugliness” (p.4 Question and Answer Session). His description of us was greeted with a roar of laughter by the Christian Church delegates.

Bro. Atchley’s theme was, “The Unity Imperative,” and he opened with the declaration, “I want to see in my life time, our fellowship reunited, and I intend to do all that I can to see that that happens” (p. 1). He and the Richland Hills church already are in full-fellowship with the Christian Churches, but his goal is to move all of our preachers and churches to that same position.

Bro. A. tells of his grandmother who in her family was the only member of the Church of Christ. She helped lead him to Christ. On her death bed he discovered that she was baptized in the early 1900s in a Christian Church. He asked how she ended up in an “acappella Church of Christ?” He was shocked when she replied, “the preacher moved.” From this he concluded that in the past such questions as instrumental music were no “big deal”; hence, neither should it be today. By this story he unwittingly reveals his lack of understanding of our past history. The division we experienced was not a finished reality in some places until the decade of the 1920s. The names Christian Church, Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ were all used indiscriminately prior to that final dissolution of fellowship. A congregation could be known as a Christian Church and yet be acappella. If a previous preacher had tolerated or advocated use of instrument, or if had he tried to straddle the fence, his successor could come along and teach the church God’s will for worship, urging the brethren to sing and make melody in their hearts” (Eph. 5:19). He then refers to “all those lousy sermons” he had listened to “all these years.” Those of course, were sermons relating to instrumental music, stressing respect for God’s Word, the authority of the New Testament of Christ, the sin of adding to or taking from God’s revealed will, etc.

Bro. Atchley cites Alexander Campbell, who wrote in his Millennial Harbinger, “We’re not going to publish, in this journal a lot of issue-oriented articles.” He proceeds to fault us for preaching and teaching on issues such as instrumental music. It is noteworthy that he feels free to address the issue from his point of view (that instrumental music is not an issue worthy of discussion). But we should not address it from our point of view!

Bro. A. attributes our refusal to yield on instrumental music to “our pride and our refusal to admit that cultural baggage has influenced a lot of who we are.” He says, “We all have cultures that taught us what we believe about what is right and wrong and what the Bible says...” (p. 2). It is true that we all have to distinguish between our culture and God’s expressed will. But is he saying that it is impossible for us commoners to read and make that distinction? Or is it only intellectuals of the change movement who have attained to that higher level of knowledge?

He insists that “we’ve (Churches of Christ) got to recover a passion for the doctrine of the unity of all believers” (p. 2). He seems to think that only he and his comrades for change care for, or preach on the importance of Christian Unity. From the beginning of our movement, 200 years ago, our brethren have preached on unity. Sadly we have learned that not everyone wants unity. Some want a unity to believe and do as they will, regardless of Scripture’s teaching. Others want unity, with everyone yielding to their opinions. Even the apostles encountered factious men (Tit. 3:10) and those who caused divisions (Rom. 16: 17). Just as Paul was not responsible for the defection of Phygelus and Hermogenese (II Tim. 1:15), we are not responsible for those who break fellowship with us.

He labors to convince his Christian Church auditors that our objection to instrumental music is simply a matter of “personal faith” or opinion, rather than a matter of Scriptural teaching. He confuses the eating or not eating of meat, (something God declares unimportant), with the worship of God, of which nothing is more important.

He says that early Christians, being led away to death would not have “fussed about a piano.” (The Christian Church folks enjoyed his point and laughed.) Under those same circumstances, what would they have said about infant baptism, or sprinkling, or weekly communion or a hundred other points of Bible teaching? Such emotional appeals only beg the question. The real question is, must we obey all things whatsoever Christ commanded or not? (Matt 28:20). He feels he has discovered the cause of our lack of unity: “We haven’t preached Christ crucified as the gospel. We have not decided to know nothing but Christ and him crucified” (p. 5). Of course he has in mind all of his brethren, save the change agents. It strikes me as a bit arrogant and judgmental to assert that the thousands of men who have preached among our churches have failed to preach Christ and him crucified. In fact I think it is more likely that every last one of them did; some more, some less, but all of them proclaimed the crucified Christ.

He affirms his belief in “salvation by grace through faith” (p. 5) and implies that other brethren (i.e. traditionalists) don’t believe it. Again I suggest that every man that ever mounted a pulpit in a Church of Christ believed in salvation by grace through faith because it is plainly taught in Scripture (Eph. 2:8-9). They did not however preach salvation by grace alone. That was the theme of their Presbyterian neighbors. They did not teach salvation by faith alone. That was the message of their Methodist, Baptist and Lutheran friends. In recent years, change agents such as Bro. Atchley have discovered this foundation pillar of Protestantism and have begun to proclaim it among our people. They neglect to emphasize that those who truly love Christ will keep his commandments (John 14:15) and that Christ saves those who obey him (Heb. 5:8-9). By the way, if preaching Christ crucified will forestall division among Christians, why have some left the Richland Hills church since they launched their program of change?

Bro. Atchley is proud that his congregation participated as counselors in the recent Billy Graham mission. He calls it “a tremendous event.” Over 100 members of his congregation participated in the mission (p. 6). Did they help those seeking salvation to pray “the sinner’s prayer”? We would ask Bro. A. what would be the spiritual status of those who prayed that prayer but chose not to be baptized for remission of their sins (Acts 2:38)?

He protests that some call him a liberal. He says he believes in the absolute authority of Scripture, the miracles and male leadership for the church. Of course he uses a twofold definition for “liberal.” Since he is not as extreme a liberal as a Unitarian preacher or professor, he insists that he does not qualify for the designation. But “liberal” is a relative term. Webster defines it, “Broad-minded, tolerant; esp: not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms.” It is “insistence that the churches should be undogmatic in temper, tolerating a plurality of theologies, and seeing personal social ethics as their main concern....” (New Dictionary of Theology (IVP). It is being ideologically left of center of the group one is associated with and its standard which they honor as the declaration of their faith. There are liberal and conservatives among Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists and Churches of Christ. Bro. A. and others of the change movement, without dispute are left of center among the brotherhood of our people. He reveals the thinking of his circle of brethren by saying, “most of the preachers that I run with in mainline churches of Christ do not believe instrumental music is wrong” (p. 7). Strange, but most of the preachers I know do in fact believe instrumental music in worship is sinful. Until 25 years ago 99 ½ percent of our preachers believed it was wrong. He assures us that he is not trying to make (us) worship “and violate (our) conscience” (p. 7). He just wants us to admit and accept that “it ain’t wrong.” Then he and his change agents can use instruments if they wish and enjoy full fellowship with those who do. We could argue the same way for the use of beads, incense and candles in worship.

In the Q & A session he ponders, “I wonder in acappella churches of Christ, if this one issue isn’t going to cause another breach...?” His response is enlightening. “I don’t know if we have enough energy to split again” (p. 7). But note that he is not worried that it might do just that! He has no intention of giving up his crusade, even if it is divisive!

To a question, he responds, “you are going to find a lot of a cappella churches that are gonna’ start saying ‘Sunday morning we are going to be a cappella, but after that, we are going to let a lot of freedom reign,’ which is pretty much what we do at Richland Hills. You walk into our youth center Sunday morning or Wednesday night: and I’m telling you–Christian rock an’ roll is just blasting’” (p. 9).

Bro. Atchley’s final word is, “But if you believe that Jesus alone saves, then you can be my brother or sister” (p. 10). Thus he shows where his road leads: open membership; fellowship with all who believe in Jesus as Savior. Perhaps it would be easier for him to tell us which sects and denominations that would exclude from his fellowship.

Rather than Rick Atchley and his team trying to change a million and a half of us, most of whom do not share his view, it seems it would be far better for them to go to the Christian Church, or some other Protestant body where they would be gladly received. It is time we bid farewell to Bro. Atchley and his fellow change-agents. They are going out from us because they are no longer of us (I John 2:19).

A. B. Gregoreo
________________________
* (Page numbers cited refer to a typed transcription of Bro. Atchley’s speech).

You , know I keep forgeting every so often reading these posts contending for the faith: The church of christ doesn't even believe the Holy Spirit is in action today. The spirit of God Himself- He isn't present and He does NOTHING? The scriptures are not more Holy than God. Theyare Holy because He had them writtnen, but He is also present with us in these days. Without Him we would be lost and in despair. I can't live my life without Him, and His loving grace. God is the same today and in the future as He was yesterday. Jesus's message was and is about changes in the heart. To resuce everything down to print on paper and argue over this is crazy. The scriptures are the steps to God. I don't want to be in a world where He is not operating. And I am sorry for people who feel He doesn't.

I totally agree and HE has a name.

It is Jesus of Nazareth now returned to full Deity in Spirit form as opposed to being visible to the eye as HAND and audible as WORD.

The NAME of Father, Son and Spirit is SINGULAR. It is Jesus or Joshua or Jehovah- Saves. That name was revealed on the day of Pentecost when Peter commanded that those who believed and then repented and were baptized in the NAME of Jesus Christ would receive a new,A holy spirit. We have GOD or JEHOVAH and His CHRIST. His Christ was prophesied to be His ARM or RIGHT HAND and that is why CHRIST Who was WITH God because He WAS God sat down on the RIGHT of the Majesty and Glory He laid aside to take on the form of a human.

RELIGIONISM was always a hateful, burden lading activity of trafficking priests. There was nothing they could do to bring REST to God's people. Even the Jews used music as exorcism and slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent animals which were TYPES of God in Christ or God Himself.

The only way God the one and only Holy [pure, wholly] Spirit could bring REST from the ceremonial legalists was to let them actually--as far as they understood it--slaughter God Himself. That would disable the pagan gods who were always musical, perverted and loved to shoot real arrows and love arrows into people.

Rick's bonded buddies Max Lucado and Rubel Shelly are credited [or cursed] with being the first humans in church history to preach that God was a Family of Gods. That is where churches get their name. John Mark Hicks missed the point that the Gospel Advocate, Lipscomb and H. Leo Boles in about 1942 PUBLISHED the first statement of this blasphemous dogma of THREE gods who are ONE in that they are somewhat friendly.

Perhaps the holy spirit you are thinking about comes from the same place as GOSPEL HYMNS: directly from Voodoo. The "little" man [sprit] is contained within the "big man" [me]."

You have almost all history--especially the Trinitarians--proving that the "persons" of the God head are not "people" but personae just as we are body, soul and spirit.

The big HEGLIAN lie is that churches of Christ invented all evil including bad breath. That intends to make you unhappy with a free-will and freedom of assembly school of the Bible so that YOU will pay the dues of performers such as "rhetoricians, sOPHISts (serpents), singers, musicians and craftsmen" who are well documented in the Greek resources as performing the task of SORCERY and are therefore parallelled with PARASITES.

God as FATHER sent Himself as SON. Jesus difined this distinction as "the Son speaks only what He hears from the Father." Unless I am driven charismatic with "praise teams" my MOUTH speaks what my MIND as father thinks. The SPIRIT is that which exists and transpires between the FATHER as Sender and SON as the WORD. That is why Jesus discounted ALL flesh and rituals and said "My WORDS are SPIRIT and LIFE." (John 6:63). If you don't SPEAK that which is written in song and sermon it is because there is NO SPIRIT within you. That is, there is no transpiring or communicating between God as Father and you as Son. That is why when you see the drift from SPEAK or SAY to that of tinkly-winkly poetic speaking or singing you know that the spirit is UNholy and there is no connection between our WORD and GOD'S thoughts.

There is probably ZERO connection between the TOWERS of babbyling and the ekklesia or synagogue of Christ--a school where the FATHER speaks to we as SONS through His Word which JESUS SAID was SPIRIT. I don't want to repudiate the words of the SON Who defined SPIRIT.

Ken

IS CHRIST DIVIDED??? YEPPPPP

RECLAIMING A HERITAGE, a review


Dr. Richard Hughes of Pepperdine University has given us, “Reclaiming a Heritage; Reflections on the Heart, Soul and Future of Churches of Christ. The book is published by Abilene Christian University Press. Bro. Hughes was raised in the Church of Christ and continues to claim membership in it (p. 118), but after reading his book one can’t help but wonder, for how long?

• From Bro. Hughes perspective, “Churches of Christ are suffering a severe identity crisis” (p. 121). Those acquainted with our brotherhood know it is not the conservative element among us, but the liberals of the change movement who suffer from this identity crisis. They don’t know who they are or where they are going. They only know that they no longer wish to be part of “restoring the faith and practice of the early church.”
  
  
• He tells us, “It is time to admit that in our churches, a wide variety of people from all walks of life...simply do not find patternism and legalism to be meaningful themes” (p. 121). By patternism he means the conviction that we should be obedient to the commands, restrictions and regulations of the Bible. He along with all other change agents flatly rejects that concept. There is a legalism that is a perversion of Christianity, but he has in mind the sense that man should be obedient to the written word of Christ! We freely admit that those of the change “fellowship” fit this category.
  
  
• He suggests, “For many in our churches today, the restoration vision is a dead-end street, an essentially useless category” (p. 121). Understand this and you will understand what change agents are saying and why. This loss of faith in our restoration vision is clearly demonstrated in the flow of materials being issued by men associated with Abilene Christian and Pepperdine University.
  
  
• He declares, “And so we are left with no useful past, no clear identity, and no meaningful legacy. Essentially we are spiritual orphans” (p. 122). This sad passage reveals the bankruptcy of the change movement. Those of us who look to Christ as the head and founder of the church; to his word as the divine standard of our faith, have no such disillusionment.
  
  
• He asserts, “Many feel...that the restoration ideal has spawned arrogance and division and little else” (p. 67). Our movement spawned Abilene Christian University, Pepperdine University (where the professor has taught) and a dozen other schools. It spread the gospel message around the world into some 110 nations. It grew from 189,000 in 1906 to some 1,350,000 here at home and as many more overseas. Its members have established and sustained a dozen benevolent homes, scores of Christian primary and secondary schools. They have pumped millions of dollars into relief for the poor and victims of tragedies. They have established and sustained campus ministries on scores of college and university campuses. Her members have written and published hundreds of books and journals including quality commentaries and Bible Translations. Her ministers are generally well-educated and her members are generally middle class. On the whole, her meeting places are modern and comfortable although not usually lavish. She has carried on an extensive outreach by radio, television, newspaper and the Internet. This is the church that Hughes thinks has spawned little else than arrogance and division..
  

Professor Hughes’ problem is revealed on p. 59. “It was not until the late 1960s that I found myself disillusioned with certain aspects of my heritage.” Now he is disillusioned with most of it. But he finds much to admire in other religious bodies who hold more liberal views.

• It is revealing to consider his view of Churches of Christ, of which is a part. His career has been spent teaching in schools founded and sustain by members of this church, hence from them he has drawn his sustenance. “Within a few short years, some had essentially abandoned the search for truth...They elevated their rejection of creeds to the status of a creedal statement...for all practical purpose, these people had turned their backs on the genius of their own tradition” (p. 34).
  
  
• He paints an accurate picture of a contemporary “change congregation:” “restorationist churches constitute a perpetual feeder for the evangelical establishment. This is a way of saying that authentically restorationist churches are by definition sectarian. As they move toward denominational status, however, they almost invariably move into the orbit of evangelical Christianity” (p. 111). “There is, perhaps no better example of the transition from restorationist sect to evangelical denomination than the Churches of Christ...” (p.112). He should qualify this by saying, “Churches of Christ of the change movement!”
  
  
• He identifies the belief that drives the change agents, it is a “newfound theology of grace” (p. 132).
  
  
• This book is a vivid example of postmodern thinking. This worldly philosophy argues that truth is unattainable; that all things are relative and there are no moral and spiritual absolutes. He tells us, “Our fathers argued that no human being can capture the truth, possess the truth, codify the truth, preserve the truth, dispense the truth, or guard the truth.” “Instead, each of us much search for truth, and that search is a search that is never completely finished” (p. 30). Of course he offers no documentation for this outlandish assertion. It does however tell us much about the author.
  
  
• He reasons that the goal of restoration is, “that every Christian must return to the biblical text time and time again, constantly rethinking his /her beliefs and opinions in the light of God’s holy word” (p. 34). What he wants to convey is that we cannot be certain of our understanding of baptism, the nature of the church, the role of women in leadership, the question of instrumental music in worship, etc. I would ask him if he is sure about such doctrines as monotheism, the deity of Christ, the reality of heaven, salvation by grace? How can he be sure of his faith? Does he have to keep searching?
  
  
• He labors long and hard to convince us we cannot understand God’s revelation sufficiently to say, “this is that” which the prophets spoke (Acts 2:16). Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth” (John 8:32), but Dr. Hughes says we cannot know the truth. But then Jesus did not have his doctorate, did he? Hughes tell us that God “refuses to be confined by words, even biblical words; and therefore shatters every formula, every definition, every pattern, every plan, every from of orthodoxy...” (p. 46). By his doctrine, he has no pattern, no standard, no sure way of knowing God’s will for how to serve him; only a blind leap of subjective “faith” and the wistful hope that God will have mercy on him! He assures us, “As envisioned by the founders of our movement, this ecumenical thrust never depended on the ability of human beings to arrive at the truth or to agree on a set of theological propositions...” (p. 31). Thus I suppose we should embrace in fellowship everyone who claims to be a Christian, all of whom are hopelessly searching for illusive truth.
  
  
• He repeatedly implies that members of Churches of Christ, other than his circle of change agents, pretend to be infallible and absolute masters of all of God’s truth. Yet in 47 years of preaching among our people I have yet to encounter even one who so claimed.
  
  
• The author tells us “the dominant theme of Churches of Christ in our early years was our commitment to the conviction, that ‘God is God and all human beings are fallible.’” (p. 35). He oft repeats this profound theological and philosophical truth but he offers no documentation to sustain it. Can he find anywhere, at any time a leader among our brethren who did not in fact recognize God alone as God and all human beings as fallible? Just one! He finally gets around to saying, “Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone seldom made direct and explicit statements to that effect, but they pointed unmistakenly to their convictions in that regard...” (p. 53). Where? This airy statement bears the musty smell of the seminary and most likely had its origin in the lectures or writings of some denominational professor. It is profound but meaningless for the discussion at hand.
  
  
• Change agents like Hughes delight in finding some ill-conceived, ill- stated line by a brother and then asserting that such dribble is representative of all conservative men...those not of his tribe. He delights in setting the extreme views of prominent men against the general consensus of other mature brethren. This he does with David Lipscomb’s views on Civil Government and Barton Stone’s views on Premillennialism. He fails to note that David Lipscomb fought the change agents of his generation hook and claw until he grew too old to do so.
  

Dr. Hughes goals are easily identified.

• He wants to convince us that we are in fact a denomination and should not claim otherwise (p.51-52).
  
  
• He wants to convince us that Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone were the “founders of our tradition” (p. 48).
  
  
• That the founding generation expressed no interest in restoring the “true Church of Christ” (p. 37). It is too bad that those first generation restoration preachers did not understand this. They would not have worked so hard to win members of sectarian bodies to the church they served.
  
  
• Along with other change agents he wants us to “treat the Bible as a narrative that tells the story of God’s mighty deeds on behalf of the world which he created, which he seeks to redeem and over which he someday will triumph when his rule is complete” (p. 186). He should tell us if there are any commandments to be obeyed? If so, which? Perhaps he would explain those two reference which speak of God’s word as a pattern and tell us why they do not mean what they say (II Tim. 1:13; Heb. 8:5).
  
  
• To Dr. Hughes the defeat of premillennialism in our ranks was unfortunate.
  
  
• “The destruction of the apocalyptic vision (includes premillennialism) severely weakened both the restoration vision and the counter cultural dimensions of Churches of Christ ...” (p. 116). If he feels that a belief in premillennialism is so important, he could find it by transferring his membership to the Independent Baptists.
  
  
• He wants us to accept women in leadership roles in the church. He describes God’s limitation on women in church leadership as “subjugation of women” (p. 89). He would negate the plainly stated restrictions on women (I Cor. 14:33-34; I Tim. 2:11-12) by citing Paul’s words, “There is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ” (Gal. 3:26-29). The fact is that God did not in some other verse place limitation on people regarding ethnicity or social status as he did on gender!
  
  
• He labors hard to convince his readers that the best minds among us have always believed that one could be a faithful Christian while an active member of a human denomination. No doubt a few exceptions could be found, but the overwhelming majority of our brethren have not thought or said such. Only with the advent of the change movement has such become widespread.
  
  
• Like other liberals in the social, political and religious realm, Dr. Hughes wants the church to involve itself in their social agenda. He frequently mentions our failure to respond to the issues of poverty, racism and war (p. 87), and “the subjugation of women” (p. 89). “Why Churches of Christ took so little interest in social ethics. Why, for example were we so reluctant to see the implications the gospel holds for large-scale issues of peace and justice? (The anti-war movement of the 60’s and the Civil Rights Movement, JHW). Why were we so reluctant to confront the issue of racial segregation...why did Churches of Christ take so little interest in the great moral issues that convulsed the country during the turbulent years of the 1960s?” (p. 58). He faults brethren because “they sometimes cast their lot with the forces of law and order that sought to subdue the voices of dissent” (p. 61). “Almost never did white, mainstream Churches of Christ support the great swelling movement on behalf of peace and justice that captured the minds of so many Americans...” (p. 61). As a true liberal he cannot imagine an intelligent person not agreeing with his agenda. He cannot understand that many of us preferred law and order to those motley crowds of anarchists rioting in our cities. Nor can he understand how Christians could work within the church to change sinful attitudes about race without joining the Civil Rights political movement. Dr. Hughes faults today’s church for the failures of past generation in dealing with slavery (1810-1865) and segregation. In this he follows the example of the social and political liberals. They cannot concede the progress made because they spend their time dwelling on the failures of the past. We do not deny the failures of past generations, but we recognize the great progress that has occurred. He constantly labors to paint “white mainstream” churches of Christ as molded and shaped by their culture. I would ask him if black Christians and churches are shaped by their culture? Are the academic communities at ACU and Pepperdine U molded and shaped by their culture?
  

One of the few useful things in this book is Dr. Hughes portrait of the liberal change element that has arisen to prominence among us. Note the characteristics of these people:

• They worked to “enhance their colleges by appealing to the budgets of local congregations through a variety of promotional strategies, through increasingly complex institutional structures, and through a vast building campaign, aimed at giving Churches of Christ more viability in the affluent and ‘respectable parts of town.’”
  
  
• “Following the 1960s, other developments suggested the Churches of Christ (make that liberal congregations and preachers) were rapidly turning their backs on their Restorationist heritage and moving into the evangelical orbit.”
  
  
• The distinctly evangelical theme of justification by grace through faith” became the norm in their preaching.
  
  
• “A therapeutic gospel, coupled with an emphasis on ‘family values’...dominated many Church of Christ pulpits.”
  
  
• “Worship sometimes verged on entertainment.”
  
  
• “And many urban Churches adopted ‘church growth’ strategies that had more in common with the Willow Creek Church (Independent Protestant Denomination in Illinois JHW) than with that traditional heritage” ( p. 117).
  

Change agents like Dr. Hughes like to talk about radical faith, discipleship and commitment, but observation reveals it is radical liberalism, not God’s ways they are calling us to. Bro. Hughes is a man he describes as “swallowed by one strain...of the popular religious culture that dominates much of American Christianity today” (p. 133). He is immersed in postmodernism, a thorough going liberal, who is trying to reshape our people after his own philosophical image. I feel sorry for this brother. His much learning and his academic environment have poisoned his heart against the church of his parents and his early life. They have filled him with a spiteful arrogance towards it and his fellow-Christians. He really needs to break out of this church which he holds in such low esteem and migrate to one whose social agenda is more attuned to his; perhaps the United Methodist or the Episcopal church. His book is pure poison, it would have been far better had it been stillborn.

_________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
johnwaddey@aol.com

BOOKS EVERY CHURCH LEADER SHOULD READ


An uninformed preacher or elder is at best a weak leader. At worst, he can be dangerous in that he may inadvertently lead his people into destructive situations that he did not perceive as dangerous. Every preacher and elder needs to inform himself about the separation and division that occurred in our Restoration Movement at the opening of the 20th century. Today, the same scenario is being repeated. Bro. Homer Hailey's excellent book, "Attitudes and Consequences of the Restoration Movement" identifies the attitudes that resulted in the departure that is now seen in the Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches.

A few years back James DeForrest Murch wrote a valuable history of the Restoration Movement entitled, "Christians Only." Being a prominent leader of the Independent Christian Churches, Murch had a perspective that is especially valuable. The following paragraph from his book contains a lesson every leader of our people needs to hear.

"Within the last generation the Church of Christ has made a phenomenal growth. This is due to two things: (1) Its people have stood like a Rock of Gibraltar for ‘the faith which was once delivered unto the saints,' amid the doubt and confusion superinduced by liberalism. They have challenged the spirit of compromise and worldliness and dared to be a peculiar people' teaching and practicing what they believe is the Bible way of life. (2) They have come to realize that the silence of the Scriptures must be respected, but that obedience to its silences permits freedom of judgment and action" (p. 313).

Francis A. Schaeffer was a powerful conservative leader among the Presbyterians and other evangelical Protestants. He had a tremendous influence from the 1960s until his death. One of Dr. Schaeffer's most valuable books is entitled, "The Great Evangelical Disaster." In it he demonstrates how conservative, Bible-believing churches have been infiltrated by and victimized by liberal theology; how that false system weaken their voices and divided their ranks. His analysis is a veritable profile of what is currently happening to Churches of Christ. When you read his observations, just substitute the words, "Churches of Christ" for his term "evangelicals" and you will quickly see the pertinence of his points.

Only Hailey's book is still in print, but a good used book dealer can probably locate you a copy of the others. Also they could most likely be borrowed from the library of a Christian College.

John Waddey
E-Mail: JOHNWADDEY@aol.com
http://www.christianity-then-and-now.com

TRUSTING WOMEN a Review

Trusting Women, (The way of women in churches of Christ) is a recent publication issued by New Leaf Books of Orange Calif. New Leaf is a perennial spring of materials promoting the agenda of the change movement. Billie Silvey is the editor of this book of essays by women affiliated with the Lord’s church. Harold Shank of the Highland Church of Christ in Memphis expresses the view of change agents concerning the message of this book “These writers say things about Churches of Christ that nobody else is saying, things that nobody else can say.” He feels it “contains things that should have been said long ago.”

This reviewer and others of a conservative bent, would describe it as a “coming out statement” of women who have rejected God’s Word and the limitations it sets on their filling roles of congregational leadership and public teaching in His church. Preferring the teaching of feminism to that of the Holy Spirit, they express their frustration with preachers, elders and congregations that would not allow them to use their talents in the leadership and public worship of the church.

This book is noteworthy in that is a declaration of the first women preachers to surface among our churches in over a hundred years. True, women preachers emerged among the digressive churches that separated from us at the end of the 19th century, but had no place among our brethren until recently.

• There is Katie Hays, one time ministeress of the Cahaba Valley Church of Christ in Birmingham, AL, now preaching for the West Islip Church of Christ in Long Island, NY.
  
  
• There is D’Esta Love, chaplain of Pepperdine University and member of the Malibu Church of Christ whose elders “made a statement to the church that made it possible for women to read from the Scriptures, to serve communion to the congregation, and to participate in periods of prayer in our worship” (p. 128). She feels that her “own religious tradition” (i.e., Churches of Christ) had let her down. She reminiscences about thinking she would never have the opportunity to use her gifts of “ministry” in the church. It seems to me she could easily have walked away from a church so tightly bound and limited by Scripture and gone to the Disciples of Christ, the Methodists, Presbyterians or Pentecostals and instantly gone on payroll (p. 129). She tells us how folks like her get around such embarrassing passages as I Cor. 14:43-34 and I Tim. 2:8-14. “We are finding tools for the analysis of scripture which allow us to view the role of women in the larger context of the biblical witness, rather than allow two heavily disputed passages to relegate women to a silent role” (p. 130). She believes that God “called (her) to Pepperdine University and has opened doors of opportunity for service that could not have been possible elsewhere” (p. 131). In this she is probably right, except of course she could have gone to Abilene Christian University and done as well.
  
  
• There is Amy Henegar, hospital chaplain, who preaches Sunday sermons at the hospital chapel.
  
  
• There is Karen Logan who found her inspiration from “a statement of faith by ‘Christians for Biblical Equality’” published in the denominational journal, Christianity Today.
  
  
• Joyce Hardin argues that women can do anything except be elders, preachers or Bible teachers of Christian men” (p. 57) . For this concession we do give her credit. But she informs us that she does “not...understand why those restrictions are placed on women” (p. 57).
  
  
• Pat Boultinghouse tells us how she found her freedom from the old Biblical restrictions while working for Howard Publishing Co. of West Monroe, LA. With the help and encouragement of Alton and John Howard, she and her husband launched Image magazine, precursor of Wineskins. She tells of working with influential leaders of the change movement such as Joe Beam, Ruble Shelly, Lynn Anderson, Jeff Walling, Mike Cope, Terry Rush and Marvin Phillips (p. 135). She asks, “Do we lift up our Lord and draw others to him when we rigidly hold to human traditions and a fifties culture” (p.141). I remind her and others of like-mind that the limitations on women in the leadership and worship of the church originated with the apostles in the first century, not the 1950s.
  
  
• Sherrylee Woodward acknowledges that, “During those tender devotions of the late sixties youth rallies, my crowd first began to wonder about applying the pattern for church worship, order and leadership when the church was not “in church.” (p. 191). It is fair to assume that much of the change agenda had it origin in the period of the sixties and in the environment of youth meetings. Young people who were poorly taught and led then are now the forty-something adults who are emerging as leaders of our churches. Raised on entertainment and emotionalism they know not what we believe nor why we worship as we do. Nor do they care much for what the Scriptures says.
  
  
• Lucille Todd and her friend, “felt the Holy Spirit moving (them)” (p. 209) .
  
  
• Karen Logan tells us she was “blessed to be at a progressive church” where she enjoyed the worship of hand-raising and singing” (p. 228). She wonders, “Where is the verse that says a woman cannot lead a prayer?” (p. 22). We could ask, “Where is the verse that says we cannot sprinkle babies for baptism?” Of course this is the wrong question. The question is where is the verse that says women can lead in public worship? She believes that “God was preparing (her) to teach gender equality using this ministry of drama” (p. 232).
  

In reading this volume, one is impressed that virtually all of these liberated women who aspire to public leadership in the Lord’s church got their education and or inspiration from universities operated by members of the Churches of Christ. The most notable influence coming from Abilene Christian University and Pepperdine University. This is important information for those who care for the church and want to see this apostasy contained. Whenever there is an outbreak of food poisoning public health workers look for the source. When blatant heresy breaks out in the church we too must look for the source. This book provides the answer. All who read Trusting Women will agree with Harold Shank who, in his commendation of this book, rightly said, “This is not an academic volume or a book on Bible study.” It is rather a declaration of women who no longer accept the Bible as their spiritual standard.

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

THE CHURCH IN TRANSITION (a review)


James S. Woodroof has preached some 50 years among us. His book, published in 1990, was a precursor of numerous similar books calling for changes to the faith, worship and practices of Churches of Christ. “Transition” is a code word for “change.” Bro. Woodroof is a smooth, skillful advocate of change; more subtle and diplomatic than most of his fellows. This book is not totally bad. The careful reader will find a few insightful observations in its pages.

On the opening page, the author seeks to establish credibility by identifying himself and his revolutionary ideas with the late G. C. Brewer, icon of brotherhood scholarship and soundness. Bro. Brewer wrote a wonderful book entitled “As Touching Those Who Were Once Enlightened” dealing with the change agents of his day. He would be no friend to those today who are tearing down what he labored to build.

Bro. W. well describes the thinking of those among us demanding change. Note: “Often when a church or a movement reaches the point I believe we have reached, it suddenly becomes “pragmatically ecumenical.” “Abandoning its convictions, it bands together with others who are suffering the same fate. Through organizational union they together hope to stay afloat by jointly dismantling their rudders. Thus crippled, they drift into uncertain waters” (p. 6). No more succinct portrait of the change agents and their churches could be painted.

The author says he is concerned about those who are “in danger of embarking on uncharted waters without a compass” (p. 7), but in actuality his book paved the way for much of the abuse and apostasy that now flourishes among us. Bro. W. believes, “Until we get our own house in order we have no right nor reason to address the broader problem of division among those outside our movement” (p. 8). There were also problems of division in first century churches. Did that disqualify the apostles to address the broader problem of division? But they did so, did they not? And so should we. He makes a confession befitting for all change agents. “It seems self-defeating to write a book advocating unity if the book itself is written in a way which only produces more division” (p. 8). This spotlights a characteristic of the advocates of change; they justify their divisive actions, by charging those who do not accept them with being divisive.

The writer says, “We are a people of the Book” (p. 15). More correctly he should say, “we (change agents) were formerly a people of the Book.” The champions of change ridicule our emphasis on the Book, calling it legalism, patternism and other uncomplimentary names. They prefer story telling to book chapter and verse preaching. They delight in citing theologians and denominational leaders to establish their points.

He has warm words for three journals that have promoted his concept of unity: Leroy Garrett’s Restoration Review, Carl Ketcherside’s Mission Messenger and Victor Knowles’ One Body (p. 17). Bros. Garrett and Ketcherside were formerly leaders of the Mutual Edification Churches (anti-located preacher). When that movement floundered, they then converted and became leaders of the most liberal element among us and were never accepted in fellowship by the great body of our people. Victor Knowles is a minister of the Christian Church. This puts a clearer focus on Bro. Woodroof’s dream for our churches. He cites as positive examples of folks seeking Christian unity the Abilene Christian University Lectures, the Tulsa Workshop and the Kiamichi Clinic of the Christian Churches in Oklahoma (p. 18). Since ACU is the fountainhead of the change movement, this clarifies where our brother finds his inspiration.

To Bro. W. “Our burning desire to be biblical has blinded us to the need to be tolerant towards others who have the same desire but who have arrived at somewhat different conclusions” (p. 21). If a burning desire to be biblical is sinful we freely confess our guilt. We must be tolerant in all areas that are not fundamental to Christianity and salvation. Even Paul and John were intolerant to those who preached another gospel and went beyond the doctrine of Christ (Gal. 1:8; II John 9). Interestingly, the author tells us that he “came to know and love Jesus Christ” long after he had been baptized, educated and trained as a minister and preacher. He was a missionary in New Zealand when he was finally converted (p. 26). He says, “We have searched the Scriptures, thinking, that in them we have eternal life; and not realizing it is He who is the life, we have failed to come to Him that we may have life. We, like they, have become enamored by the written word to the point of becoming oblivious to the Living Word” (p. 29). This is a heavy indictment to lay upon some 2 million Christians around the world, the most of whom, it is fair to say, he has never met. Can he bring forth an example of any member of the church who is “oblivious to the Living Word” i.e. Jesus? Jesus said, “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and are life” (John 7:63). Does Bro. W. believe that we can be saved without the Scripture or by neglecting them? If the Word is of so little value, why does he bother to preach the Bible?

He quotes the early Christian, Eusebius, who wrote of some in his day who “...treat the divine Scriptures recklessly and without fear. They have set aside the rule of ancient faith; and Christ they have not known. They do not endeavor to learn what the Divine Scripture declare, but strive laboriously after any form of syllogism which may be derived to sustain their impiety. And if anyone brings before them a passage of Divine Scripture, they see whether a conjunctive or disjunctive syllogism can be made from it...” (p. 30). One can only conclude that the Bro. W. uses this interesting quote to strike a blow against brethren who have effectively used syllogistic arguments in controversy with those who were promoting change. It is wrong and unfair to imply that great thinkers like Bro. Thomas Warren in any way, “set aside the ancient faith” or that they did not know Christ, or did “not endeavor to learn what the Divine Scripture declare” preferring to make a syllogism. Perhaps the author has felt the sting of Bro. Warren’s piercing logic.

Bro. W. says, “We had no more right (maybe not as much, in view of Paul’s statement) to preach only the last part of the good news than Billy Graham had to preach only the first part” (p. 33). First he should point out to us the preacher who has taught “only the last part of the good news.” Having done that, he needs to elaborate on Billy Graham having more right to preach “only the first part” of the good news. Can we conclude from this that Bro. W. would consider the man who preached salvation by faith alone as more faithful to Christ’s commission than the man who preached salvation by faith and baptism ( Mark 16:16)? Such reasoning helps us understand why numerous change churches have participated in Billy Graham crusades. It also explains why men such as Max Lucado are now preaching that salvation is by grace through faith, before obedience to gospel commands.

The writer tells us, “There is much uncertainty and mounting unrest among members of the Church of Christ today” (p. 44). But he does not say that such is only among those primed and prepped by the agents of change. That those under their influence are restless and uncertain is obvious to all. But they are only a small part of the whole. Most members of the church continue to hold to “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) and are happy and confident in their faith.

In defense of himself and his fellow promoters of change, Bro. W. says, “those addressing the issue are not causing the problem, but are merely acknowledging the presence of it and attempting to offer some answers? (p. 44). Those familiar with our history know that there has never been a false teacher or agitator who troubled the church who felt he was “causing a problem.” It has always been their response that those who refuse to heed their demands were at fault.

The author makes an interesting concession on p. 45: “There are some mega-churches reporting increase, but most of them must admit that the majority of their growth comes from swelling;” i.e., by absorbing members from other congregations about them. His observation is absolutely correct. Speaking of promotionalism, he notes, “The mega-churches which provide the community with a wide selection of services are most susceptible to this trap” (p. 51) Agreed! Without promotionalism they would wither away. Their recruits would flock to the denominational mega-churches with more elaborate programs. It is primarily in the mega-churches that the change agents have been well received.

Bro. W. charges, “the traditional approach to the Holy Spirit by Churches of Christ had been one of ignoring him. We generally believed that when the written word was completed, the Spirit’s work was forever done” (p. 49). Would he tell us just who has believed and taught this about the Holy Spirit. It is common to hear liberals make such unsubstantiated charges against the Lord’s people and the unknowing take them as facts. In reality they are exaggerated falsehoods. He thinks that the thing that kept us from being “swept away by the emotionalism of the early Stone movement was the excesses of Pentecostalism” (p.50). He does not perceive that the greater reason was the lack of Biblical authority for such behavior that made our people reject that emotionalism.

While change agents call for a new hermeneutic that will free the rest of us from the old command, example or necessary inference approach to the Bible, they interpret every scripture through the prism of change. Woodroof interprets the historical record of the acceptance of the Gentiles into the church from a pejorative point of view, seeing events in their worst light. He exaggerates the extent of the problem with Peter and the other apostles (p. 65-66). Concerning the acceptance of the Gentiles, he writes, “But why all the resistance to this God-ordained transition? Why did God’s people oppose God’s plan? Why was there entrenched opposition, such prolonged resistance? (p. 67) To build his case for change today, he writes as if the failure of some Jewish brethren was the failure of the whole! This is not sound exegesis!

The author writes, “Fear of change may also explain the actions of some who attempt to follow Jesus: ‘fear to move forward, fear to make peace, fear to open dialog.’ It is, however, a hallmark of true discipleship that disciples follow Jesus wherever he might lead... Jesus was an outspoken advocate of change” (p.68). He assumes that the leadership of the change agents is the same as Christ’s leadership. Christ came with a new religion. Can we conclude that is what the change folks have to offer us? Christ was empowered of God to institute change; they are not. Christ’s change was heaven-ordained; theirs seeks to change what Christ has given us.

It is impressive to note how all change agents tend to say the same thing, use a common vocabulary and examples. This suggests that all have been to the same schools and seminars and read the same books and journals. It is as if they studied the same manual. I wish one of them would tell us the original sources from which they are gathering their materials. I can predict that they are from denominational churchmen who know nothing of, nor care a whit for going back to the Bible, finding and practicing New Testament Christianity.

Bro. W. says, “Much of what the Jewish Christians had to recognize as baggage was not just that which resulted from human accumulation, but also that which had come to them through divine revelation” (p. 74). This leads me to ask is this where he and his associates are heading? Do they expect us to surrender to change that which is of divine revelation? The author acknowledges that the things they wish to change “are things we can go to our graves practicing... (S)hould we recognize that we too are a church in transition; there probably will be no massive revolution in our worship practices or in the general manner in which we believe religiously” (p.77). Paul warned that “by their smooth and fair speech (divisive teachers) deceive the hearts of the innocent” (Rom. 16:18) Here are some of the changes already being widely promoted. You decide if they would effect a “massive revolution” in the worship of your congregation. * Instrumental music in worship, * choirs and solos; *the Lord Supper as part of a pot luck meal; * hand clapping and applause in worship; * women teachers and preachers; * no more gospel preaching, rather story telling and drama; * accepting our status as a denomination; * fellowshipping denominational bodies, * allowing their preachers to fill our pulpits; * people “being saved” by confessing Christ and praying the sinner’s prayer. If these changes would not be revolutionary in your congregation, it is evidence that the change movement is already entrenched there.

Bro. W. tell us, “We...are faced with unremitting prospect of their being Christians on earth, as fully acceptable to God as we, who do not look and act exactly like us” (p. 77). He does not have in mind unknown souls who on their own have searched the Scriptures and found the way of salvation, rather he has in mind our denominational neighbors. He along with other change agents likes to hold up before the world the various divisions that have occurred over the years and blame us with responsibility for them. “Look at the thirty or more official divisions among us...” (p. 77). Some folks exaggerate. That some brethren disagree on whether Christian should go to war does not constitute an “official division;” nor does disagreement about women wearing head coverings; nor most of the 30 he mentions. Many today can agree to disagree on numerous nonessentials that once troubled our fathers. The process is called maturation. By the way, I wonder what makes a division “official.”

He charges, “We have been guilty of severing the body of Jesus from limb to limb. We have divided over such matters as cups and kitchens, organs and orphans, race and ritual, pastors and personalities, contribution and cooperation and a host of other things” (p. 78) This does have a cute poetic ring but it is exaggerated and seeks to blame all with the sins of the few. I ask Bro. Woodroof and his fellow agents of change, how he would respond if an element arose in the church where he preaches demanding that he not be paid for his work, or that they remove their fellowship facility or that they use only one cup in communion? Would he concede out of love, tolerance and a desire for unity? Would he try to teach them? If he saw them gaining ground among his members and threatening to overwhelm the leadership what would he do? If the mistaken brethren were frustrated in their attempts to impose their opinions for change and withdrew themselves and started a new congregation, would it be his fault or theirs?

He says, “We like the Jewish Christians of the first century, have been sitting in a position of sectarian elitism for years” (p. 86). Does this include Bro. W. and his Christian ancestors? Does it include his fellow change agents, or only those who do not embrace his call for change? Name-calling proves nothing. But it does reflect the author’s degree of love and appreciation for the church of Christ and his brethren within it. He tells us, “I have spent, and am presently spending, my life pursuing pure doctrine. But I insist on letting God determine what that doctrine is...(p. 94). Would he inform us just how God tells him what is “central” and what is “peripheral” doctrine? Does he have a source of information beyond the Bible that the rest of us mortals have? He says, “Jesus himself was preached as the only message. There was no other” (p. 107). Why then did the Holy Spirit guide the apostles to write the epistles if they are unneeded and per him the root of our lack of unity? He notes, “there have been believers in every generation, especially among restorationists, who so revered their own traditions that they felt justified in excluding all other believers who did not totally share their beliefs. This is purely and simply sectarianism...” Based on a few cases, he proceeds to casts guilt on the whole body of Christians.

On one hand he argues that we should just preach Christ and not let doctrine divide us. But then he says, “the call for us to preach God’s message and “let that be enough” has nothing to do with the ongoing need to nourish and strengthen the new convert in the ‘whole counsel of God.’ It does not advocate abandoning the letters of the Apostles which address the further equipping of the saints or the organizing of the church to be the body of Christ in the local community. It does not negate the addressing of specific problems of the corporate church and the correcting of abuses...” (p. 110-111). He wants it both ways. Preach Christ and that is enough, all else is divisive. But we do need to preach from the epistles and address the specific needs of the church. These opposites cancel each other, do they not? Why then does he fault us for preaching the “whole counsel of God;” Gospels, Acts, Epistles and Revelation?

He writes, “We have shed blood to establish the sufficiency of that God-designed process apart from denomination accretions. Surely we will not abandon it now...” (p. 111). But it is Bro. Woodroof and his coworkers who are in fact trying to change (i.e., abandon), the faith, worship and practice, that God designed for his people. He states, “I have often said that Rom. 14:1-15:7 is the Spirit’s attempt to clean up the mess caused by the events in Acts 10” (p. 119). Although he later attempts to soften this rash statement, it borders on blasphemy. The Holy Spirit does not attempt, he does. The divine instruction of Peter and the opening of the door of salvation to the Gentiles in Acts 10 was no mess. It was one of the epochal events in sacred history.

He charges, “Any thoughtful assessment of the 20th century Church of Christ will drive us to the conclusion that we as a movement, instead of an instrument to the glory of God, are to a great extent, an occasion of embarrassment and cause of shame to God” (p. 120). Does he include himself and his change comrades in this indictment? Does this describe congregations where he has preached? Without doubt he is embarrassed by his association with Churches of Christ! Like all liberals, he finds loveliness in denominational bodies and naught but sores and ugliness in the Lord’s church! “For those who say ‘we divided over convictions,’ well it may seem that way on the surface,, and we may wish it to be that in reality, but that is seldom, if ever, the case” (p. 121). I take it that he feels we had no scriptural basis to refuse to go with the Christian Churches and Disciples of Christ when they introduced their changes! If so he should bid us goodbye and go to them. He would surely be more comfortable there. “The more conservative church...must not condemn the church which (is)...more liberal” (p. 123). This is what his book is all about. He wants us to allow the liberal change agents do their work; to effect their changes without question or challenge. How convenient for them!

He labors to convince us that their changes are not really bad, but only in the minds of we whom he judges to be weak Christians. He writes, “The uncleanness lies inside a person and not in the things themselves which lie outside the person” (p. 125). But there surely are things he would object to: adoration of images, a pope, infant baptism, etc. etc. Are these things wrong only “inside the person?”

He endorses the “Bull’s Eye” approach to evaluating scriptures. We are left to wonder if Bro. Bill Love got the idea for his book by that title from Bro. Jim Woodroof or did Bro. W. get his idea form Bro. Love? After deriding us for not spending more time in the gospels and too much time and emphasis on the epistles, he then spends much time and space in Romans chapters 14 and 15 to make his case for his change agenda. Working on Rom. 15:17-18, he writes, “...the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit. He who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God.” He then concludes with these remarkable words, “Does not he also then, imply that a person who fails to view the kingdom in this way is not acceptable to God? Is not this a necessary inference?” (p. 141). Earlier he faulted us for using logic, making deductions and drawing inferences. Such, says he, is divisive. But when he needs it, he does just that. I suppose it is acceptable to do so if you are promoting the change platform, but not if you are objecting to it. He states, “Since the kingdom consists of righteousness, peace and joy...it follows that we should then be in pursuit of that, and be forever finished with division and strife...” (p. 145). Per him we should never spend time opposing error taught and practiced by others. But notice that he and other change agents do just that against us, continually. If it is good of them, why not for us? He and his brethren remind one of the anti-war demonstrators at work in our cities. To protest our nation’s war against the cruel tyrant of Bagdad, they throw rocks and bottles at the peace officers tying to maintain the peace of the community.

Speaking of the early days of our movement, he says, “In those days, when such massive theological jungles had to be cleared and the boundaries of doctrine identified and staked out, we were able to provide honorable and intelligent men of integrity to do battle for the truth and defend the faith. We own much to those giants who gave their lives in pursuit and propagation of truth” (p. 149). If such was a good and noble pursuit then, why is it not now? Most change agents prefer to hurl rocks at those early champions who cleared the road for them to travel. He says, “Instead of going to the uttermost parts of the earth to preach ‘Jesus as the Christ’ to the lost and unchurched (Lk 5:31-32), we remained close to the camps of those who considered themselves saved and occupied ourselves with preaching reactionary theology...” (p. 150). Note he feels we should not seek to win those who already believe in Christ and think themselves saved. That would include members of all religious denominations. This speaks volumes about Bro. Woodroof’s thinking. Were Priscilla and Aquila mistaken in taking time to each Apollos and win him over? Or was Paul wrong for teaching and rebaptizing those twelve men of Ephesus?

He derides “self-appointed defenders of the faith committed to...keeping the church pure” (p. 151). But change agents such as Bro. Woodroof are self-appointed saviors of the church with their own variety of unity with Christian Churches. They too are warring against legalism, traditionalism. If it is wrong for us, why is it right for them? Is their case special?

He states, “Whenever two groups thus separate...more than likely the division indicates that neither has the mind of Christ at all—not at the time of separation or later...the longer each group goes along without the influences of the other, the less likely either will possess the mind of Christ” (p. 166). Does he include our fathers who refused to go with the progressives of last century whom we know as Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches? If so, then all of his years of service have been with an illegitimate body that is “not likely to possess the mind of Christ.”

To Bro. Woodroof, Churches of Christ are a denomination, born of the division with the Disciples of Christ. “We don’t like to hear criticism that would imply that we may be a denomination. But the time has come of Churches of Christ to redefine the term ‘denomination’...” (p. 167). By that redefinition, he means we should accept our status as a denomination and not insist that we are the true church of Christ founded by Jesus. This being the case, when he went as a missionary to New Zealand he was in reality a denominationalist sowing and practicing denominationalism. When he has preached here at home he did so as a denominational preacher to congregations of denominational people.

The message of The Church in Transition reminds one of a fountain that offers from the same opening both sweet water and bitter (Jas. 3:11). That which is good is tainted by that which is false. The value of this book is to know just what this prominent author really believes about the Church of Christ, our faith, our practice and our people. It demonstrates the destination the agents of change have in mind to take us. It makes us aware of how serious our problem is. It also gives us a good insight as to where much of the thinking of lesser men comes from.

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John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

[emph., d.c.]


THE CRUCIFORM CHURCH (a review)


C. Leonard Allen issued this book in 1990. It is important because it is one of the earlier books promoting the change agenda. It continues the project that began with his two previous books, Discovering Our Roots: the Ancestry of Churches of Christ and The Worldly Church; A Call for Biblical Renewal (p. ix). Bro. Allen was at the time of writing, an associate professor at Abilene Christian University's College of Biblical Studies. Thoughts, phrases and expression from this book echo in many of the speeches and books of other change agents that have followed him. I think it fair to say that Bro. Allen is a chief theoretician and architect of the change movement that is ravaging our churches. The author dedicates his work to Dr. Thomas Olbricht of Pepperdine U., father of the New Hermeneutics. It is a veritable handbook for seducing unwitting Christians and churches away from their biblical roots and into the camp of the change movement. Allen and other change agents hide behind a mask of pretended piety and concern for the church while, chipping away at her foundations to effect her collapse. He gives lip service to his "debt to Churches of Christ" yet he acknowledges that he questions and critiques "some aspects of (his) heritage..." He wants to "stand free from the influence of tradition" [i.e. his heritage in the Church of Christ jhw] (p. ix). He concludes that his faith, learned in the Church of Christ, needs "careful alterations" (p. x). In this book he attempts to ingraft those alterations to faith upon his readers.

The word "cruciform" means "a cross-shaped church." It is a picturesque term borrowed from the denominational world and likely was intended to disarm readers who would think it was a positive, constructive attempt to bring the church closer to Christ. For many, by the time they grasp its true intent, the damage will have been done.

Allen critiques the way we read Scriptures; the way we view God; the place we give to the cross of Christ; our stance towards the world; our portrayal of Christ-like character and gives us failing marks in each category (p. 14-15). If I were a member of church that I found so flawed, I would be looking for a different body with more promise. Hopefully Bro. Allen and his tribe will do just that.

Having read some 15 books by various change agents, I am impressed that all of them must read the same books or listen to the same thought leaders. They use the same examples, make the same criticisms and propose the same changes!

Change agents, like Allen, like to identify with illustrious teachers of the past to validate their specious claims. Allen, claims Bro. G. C. Brewer as the icon whose ideas he is promoting. For the unknowing, the sacred name of Brewer may give them credence, but those familiar with G. C. Brewer's life and work know that he would not have given these false teachers the time of day. Brewer's two books, "As Touching Those Who Were Once Enlightened" and "A Medley on the Music Question" belie their claims. Brewer chastened those who left the church for the charms of denominationalism and those who vainly tried to justify the use of instrumental music in their worship.

He opens by telling us that "we…face a kind of identify crisis" (p 3). But it is not those of the "traditional" churches who are suffering from an identity crisis, it is the change agents and their converts who having abandoned the guiding principles of New Testament Christianity are blindly searching for meaning and direction in the realm of denominationalism and subjectivism.

Rather than faithfully preaching the sacred Word, he tells us, "we must learn to tell stories" (p. 4). Lacking scripture for what they believe, a story promotes their change doctrine well.

Allen dismisses the historical studies of other brethren as flawed and self-serving (p. 6). It is necessary for men of his tribe (i.e., change agents) to correctly interpret the past and debunk the things we believe and in which we trusted. He says, the historical approach our brethren have taken "has inhibited and dislocated our theological efforts" (p. 6). He assures us that his criticism of the church and her members past and present is not to be taken as carping, cutting down or fault-finding, but that is exactly how it impresses this reader! He acknowledges that we might interpret his criticism as "bashing the pioneers" (p. 10). That is precisely what he is doing! Like all liberals, he seeks to build his case by discrediting great teachers of the past; men whose shoes he is unworthy to tie! Behold how the brass doth shine! What has Allen done to win the lost, plant new congregations and defend the church and the faith of Christ from those who are His mortal enemies? Allen contrasts his highly educated professorial peers with the humble, preachers of the past who were largely self-trained and pronounces his team the winner. But the proof is in the pudding. It was precisely those humble men who went forth with minds filled with the Word hearts aflame and brought multitudes to Christ. They planted the churches and even established the schools the change agents now occupy and use for their new brand of religion. Even today it is not the professors and those with the doctorates that go forth seeking and saving the lost! To Dr. Allen, of all the thousands of preachers and teachers among us for 200 years, only a handful of recent change agents, principally at Abilene Christian U and Pepperdine U have correctly understood the bible and its doctrines.

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THE CRUCIFORM CHURCH (a review)—Part 1 . . . to be continued
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Reviewed by John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

[emph., d.c.]


THE CRUCIFORM CHURCH (a review)—Continued


The author [C. Leonard Allen] dismisses past brethren such as N. B. Hardeman with the wave of his hand, charging him with a "serious dislocation of the past" (p. 8). Of course Bro. Allen assumes he is wiser and a better historian than Bro. Hardeman. The fact is, his biblical knowledge, his ability as a teacher and preacher and most especially his usefulness to the Cause of Christ pales as a dim shadow beside Hardeman!

He says, we must "face the challenge of rethinking our traditional way of reading the Bible" (p. 19). "Some (namely change agents, jhw) have consciously rejected their (traditional jhw) methodology of interpretation and begun casting about for new ones" (p. 19). He assures us that "the traditional view" (i.e. of biblical interpretation, jhw) is in decline. While this is true of change agents and the schools they control, it is not true of the vast majority of our preachers and teachers. He warns that those who reject the traditional approach are "susceptible to theological fads" (p. 20). "The Bible becomes the self-help manual par excellence, a book containing just the things we like to hear. This current secularizing and psychologizing of Scripture provides another compelling reason we must rethink the role of the Bible in Christian faith" (p. 20). Rather than the way "traditional" churches handle scripture, this is a perfect portrait of how change agents such as Allen use it. He criticizes the way our preachers have studied and interpreted Scripture, yet most of them studied and were trained in schools like Abilene. So his indictment includes his own professional peers in our Christian Universities. It is true that some of our preachers did not have a good working knowledge of hermeneutics and some did not always rightly divide the more difficult parts of the Word, but one need not be a highly trained exegete to understand the basic lessons of salvation, the worship and the church. If such were so, how few would be able to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Allen charges that, "Our traditional approach violated the historical and literary character of the Bible" (p. 32). "Among Churches of Christ, the effect of the Baconian method was to shut down serious attention to Scripture's historical or cultural settings" (p. 33). I have always sought to discover the historical and cultural context and the literary style of the particular text I was studying. Maybe his early Biblical education failed him in this respect. It is true that we have not made our interpretation conform to the rationalistic canons of liberal theologians. Perhaps it is this he really objects to.

He says, "Our traditional way of reading the Bible has restricted our Spiritual resources for dealing with the advanced secularization of our time" (p. 35). Does he suggest that the "new hermeneutic" produces a stronger, more courageous disciple who can better resist the temptations of our secular society? Are the students and graduates of Abilene and Pepperdine thus more godly and victorious than their peers from Freed Hardeman or Faulkner U? He asserts that our "traditional' hermeneutic hinders our compassion (pp. 174-175). What a wild unfounded assumption. Does he claim that his change churches exhibit more compassion and benevolence than the traditional churches? He treats us to pages of theological gobbledegook and insists that, "the traditional approach....fostered a kind of spiritual self-reliance, proves theologically inadequate to address an individualistic, self-indulgent secularized age. How we might ask can a self-help Christianity direct increasingly self-indulgent people away from self" (p.37). But it is precisely the change agents who are preaching the self-help gospel!

This book is a promotional piece for the "New Hermeneutics." This new method of interpreting God's Word is an essential tool to create a mind-set willing to accept their innovations without question or dissent. If they can get novice Christians to read the Word through the tinted lenses of denominationalism, they can lead them anywhere with ease. With their new hermeneutic, they would create a religion without commands and ordinances that must be obeyed; one without obligations or accountability. He sees his approach to Bible interpretation as "more faithful" than the method used by the rest of us (p. 11). Many of the alleged principles of their new hermeneutics are not really new. Much of what they claim to have discovered are basic principles of interpreting Scripture, known by all serious students of the Word for hundreds of years. Preacher students at their Christian universities may not have been taught these basic tools of information, but students in schools of preaching routinely receive this instruction. His critique of our methods of interpretation is flawed because it is built upon a mistaken premise that no one knows how to properly interpret Scripture but the he and his fellow change agents. "Given our familiar, traditional way of reading the Bible, however, such a move may well mean breaking with tradition and entering a strange and unfamiliar world" (p. 71). Change agents are the ones "breaking with tradition and entering a strange and unfamiliar world! "

Dr. Allen's view of Scripture is revealing. He says the "canonical list containing exactly the twenty-seven books we accept today appeared only by the fourth century, though even then there was not unanimity among the various Christian communities" (p. 56). Perhaps he could tell us who wrote those books of our Bible, not accepted until the fourth century after Christ. He should tell us if he believes all the 66 books of the Bible are equally inspired of God, as for example the Gospels

The arrogance and smugness of the change agents is illustrated in his discussion of our understanding of God. He writes as though he has discovered something new that all the rest of us "traditionals" have failed to grasp: that God is transcendent, omnipotent and capable of doing wondrous, stupendous things (p. 98). It is interesting to see him evaluate the Christian's view of God through the lens of atheistic philosophers such as Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), Karl Marx (1818-1881) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).

Change agents like Allen delight in labeling the truths we hold dear as mere traditions that need to be abandoned for the new truths they have discovered. Allen favorably quotes F. J. A. Hort who wrote, "the air is thick with bastard traditions which carry us captive, unawares while we seem to ourselves to be exercising our freedom and instinct for truth" (p. 11). While harshly criticizing our traditions, he insists that we must "take Christian traditions other than our own with great seriousness" (p. 11). He describes the impact his agenda will have on some Christians: "The effect of such an engagement might best be described as a theological loss of innocence" (p. 12). A "loss of innocence" suggests an experience like a seduction or rape, and in a spiritual sense, that is an apt description of occurs when change agents steal into a congregation.

Bro. Allen implies that all but his group of preachers and churches have "lost the word of the cross" (p. 113). The author is totally out of touch with reality! Only the theological liberals, whose works he cherishes, have lost the word of the cross! The preachers of the change movement, who resort to entertainment and drama to nourish their congregants are the ones who have lost the precious message of the cross. Other brethren continue to preach Christ today as always!

For Allen it is not enough that we believe in the omnipotent, transcendent God, the atoning death of Christ and that we preach those truths; we must plumb the mystery which is incomprehensible (p. 115-120). Allen bases his program on the premise that the true meaning of God's will is an incompressible mystery (p. 118). That being the case, how can we know anything for sure about God, Christ, the Bible and the Church? The very definition of a mystery is that which is not understood.

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THE CRUCIFORM CHURCH (a review)—Part 2 . . . to be continued
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__________________________________
Reviewed by John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

[emph., d.c.]


THE CRUCIFORM CHURCH (a review)—Continued


Bro. Allen has a huge misconception regarding Churches of Christ. He builds his case on the faulty assumption that the Old Testament is universally neglected in our preaching and teaching, that we fail to appreciate and teach its great themes. Allen and other change agents have not actually found points of doctrine we have overlooked or neglected. They have an elitist attitude of superiority and smugness towards their brethren who are not their academic peers and who do not share their appetite for change.

The author says that the church must be "a withdrawing community," yet change agents are the champions of mega churches with their elaborate social, recreational and entertainment programs. They routinely make common cause with the world about us. Does the administration and staff of ACU or Pepperdine U live "withdrawn" from the world? One need only visit the campus of either school to get the answer. Are the churches the change agents serve free from worldly influences? Behold they say and do not!

Among his many criticisms of the church is that as a whole (specifically, we leaders, jhw) act as though we have no human history; that we have only the Biblical history of the early church. This is but one of the baseless assertions on which he erects his flimsy structure. A multitude of our preachers had courses in church history and restoration history while in our colleges and in virtually all did who attended our schools of preaching. Books of brotherhood history and biography have enjoyed wide circulation among us over the years. While encouraging his readers to study our past he says, "One may become so keenly aware of the humanness of the tradition that one is tempted to reject it" (p. 13). This is precisely what he and other change agents have done! Allen paints what he imagines one might conclude about us as our history is studied. His description well describes the liberal change agents: "One may perceive serious theological distortions...or discern narrowness and intolerance. One may find overwhelming ironies in the movement (for example, the grandiose plan for unity, yet the runaway fragmentation that ensued). One may be frustrated by institutional intransigence" (p. 13). He confesses that he has felt a longing to start all over again, abandoning the church as she presently exists (13).

Chief among his criticisms are the following: "The central irony that has dogged our movement since its inception: the tendency to creedalize the absence of creeds, to make nonsectarian claims a centerpiece of one own sect, to make rejection of all human tradition a fixture of one's own robust tradition..." (p. 24).

He faults our understanding of the world and consequently our understanding of the Bible...blaming us for seeing the world through the eyes of Isaac Newton's view of nature rather than as did our predecessors in the Dark Ages. I wonder if Bro. Allen prefers that superstitious, medieval view of the world and the Word over that which he grew up with? He faults us for using the inductive method to determine the meaning of Scripture. He prefers the uncertain approach of subjectivism and relativism. He indicts our way of studying Scripture, "The traditional approach elevated inorganic, impersonal, and mechanistic models of the Bible, the church and the Christian life" (p. 31). "The Bible became an inert object, a compendium of separate facts and commands rather than a unified, personal story of God's acts and character" (p. 31). I don't know just where he has spent his life or which congregations he has been associated with, but his experience is totally atypical. I have visited at least 300 of our churches over the years and not found such to be the case. Perhaps he is just repeating an urban legend circulating among his peers. He and other change agents have a hundred criticisms but no positive construction suggestions for the church. Like termites they eat away at the foundation and structure of congregations leaving only ruin.

On page 46 he tells us Alexander Campbell failed to properly interpret Scripture because "He drew upon a modern western, ‘social compact' theory widely held in the political thought of his day." My what arrogance from a would be scholar not qualified to hold light for Alexander Campbell. Allen is like an armchair critic who deigns to criticize the general who lead a great army to victory.

Bro. Allen bases his program on the premise that the real and correct understanding of the Bible is an incomprehensible mystery. He exalts the incomprehensible mystery and then faults those who do not dwell on the incomprehensible (p. 118). He says "we do not solve true mysteries, we engage them..." He bemoans the fact that gospel preachers commonly cite Eph. 3:2-6 showing that the mystery is now made known in Christ. If Scripture is an unfathomable mystery, then none can know what God's will for us is and all are left to their own ideas and opinions. This uncertainty is the basis of Postmodernism. All of his multi-syllabic discourse about mystery of religion says nothing significant or new. All mysteries that were pertinent to our salvation and faith were revealed to us by revelation. Other mysteries, things unrevealed, belong to God and we must be content with what he has shown us (Deut. 29:29).

He insists that we must "enlarge our canon," meaning "recovering the Jewish Scriptures as a vital and functional part of our Christian life" (p. 52). This falsely implies that we do not recognize the 39 Old Testament books as divine Scripture. He really wants to convince the unknowing that Old Testament Scripture is equally authoritative for doctrine and practice of the church today. Principally he wants them to accept those Old Testament passages authorizing the Hebrews to use instrumental music in their worship as giving approval for its use in our worship today. He says, "We must embrace the whole canon of Scripture and thereby become a more biblical people" (p. 57). This is pure puffery. Everyone accepts the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. He posits a false impression (that traditional preachers do not accept the Old Testament books), then proceeds to attack and destroy the imaginary situation he has created.

In the same vein, Allen says we must "elevat(e) the Gospel accounts to equal status with the Epistles as authoritative documents for the church" (p. 52). This falsely implies that we elevate one part of the New Covenant over the other, thus neglecting the Gospels. For our preachers, he says, "The Gospels, in short, play a somewhat minimal role when it comes to preaching the gospel or instructing the church about its life together in Christ" (p. 52). False charge! Note that he acknowledges "It exaggerates only a bit (better, a lot, jhw), to say that the Old Testament and to some degree the Gospels- dropped out of the theology of Churches of Christ" (p. 55). False again. He labors to prove that the early church loved and honored the Old Testament (p. 56). But no one believes otherwise! This, like much of his book, is relevant. He tells us "Neglect or eclipse of the Old Testament, for this reason makes us more vulnerable to misalliances with secular or naturalistic world views (p. 57). This statement better describes the change agents who warmly embrace the anti-Christian views of pluralism, relativism and post-modernism!

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THE CRUCIFORM CHURCH (a review)—Part 3 . . . to be continued
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__________________________________
Reviewed by John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

[emph., d.c.]


THE CRUCIFORM CHURCH (a review)—Continued


Much of this book is filled with "theo-babble" i.e., heavy, obtuse paragraphs filled with the cloudy language of the denominational theological seminary. Such lines make no sense to the average reader. For example: "Parables are not illustrations; they do not support, elaborate, or simplify a more basic idea. They are not ideas at all, nor can they ever be reduced to theological statements...They contain a surplus of meaning that beckons us beyond ourselves to discover something new...They have hooks all over them; they can grab each of us in a different way..." (p. 61). This, dear reader, is the scholarship of the new hermeneutic.

Allen says, "Life in the kingdom involves a shattering for the settled, predictable, well-managed, ‘possible world’" (p. 102). While eulogizing the mighty power of God, he hints at the idea that God will still work miracles today as in Biblical times (p. 102).

He charges that "the ‘word of the cross' has been significantly displaced in the history of Churches of Christ...we have tended to push the cross into the background and thus to proclaim an anemic and distorted gospel" (p. 113). "The most pressing question facing Churches of Christ today is the question; Can we recover ‘the word of the cross' in its biblical fulness?" This is an arrogant assumption on the part of a professor whose view of the Church and the world is the insular campus of a university. Before he could honestly make such an indictment of a brotherhood of some 15,000 preachers (here and around the world), he would have to interview each, review all the sermons and classes they have taught to see how much emphasis they placed on the ‘word of the cross!' Perhaps he views the whole church through the prism of his ACU classroom where theological liberalism holds sway! "In light of our own theological tradition and our present culture, then, can we truly proclaim—or even—hear the New Testament ‘word of the cross'" (p. 114). This is arrogant presumption. He looks at the faith of the liberal Protestant bodies in our society and then blames us with their malady! It is fair to ask, while he dabbles in his mysticism, ecumenism, and criticism of his brethren, is he himself proclaiming ‘the word of the cross?' Whatever our failures to place appropriate emphasis on the cross, the change agents with their entertainment, feel good message are in no way superior.

On page 63, Allen tells us "We must remember however that torah was not ‘law' in our often narrow usage of the word. It was not simply divine commands and human obligations. It was not legalism. Rather it was the story of God's love and might, of divine graciousness and deliverance." Strange, the Jews did not understand it as does he. On the previous page he discusses the various "law codes" of the Torah. Which way shall it be? Is it the law of God or a narrative of God's love and might? In fact it combines both, but it most certainly contains hundreds of rules and regulations that God expected the Hebrews to obey "For if ye shall diligently keep all this commandment which I command you, to do it..." (Deut. 11:22).

He repeatedly implies that the advent of the Age of Reason caused modern man (us jhw) to have a view of God inferior to that of medieval man (p. 81). Does he really believe that the medievals in their ignorance and superstition had a better understanding or a closer relationship with God than he does! "Our tradition among Churches of Christ makes it easy for us to think this way. For we have not focused on the biblical doctrine of God" (p. 82). Have any change preachers done a better job of focusing on God? Which ones? He hints that we whom he labels "traditional" have such a distorted view of God that it borders on idolatry (p. 85, 90).

Like all true liberals, whether political or theological, Allen sees all thing through a racial prism, Blacks against Whites, harkening back to the slavery of a century ago, setting the faith, even the concept of God between the two races in opposition to each other. Do liberal changes agents form God in their own image? "The God of slaves is the commendable liberator who identified with their suffering. The God of middle class White Americans views America as Number One, or perhaps as the elect nation chosen to lead the world in the paths of righteousness. God sanctions the American work ethic where prosperity and affluence becomes sign of divine favor and poverty becomes a sign of moral failure. God becomes an ardent capitalist, a support of the nuclear arms race..." (p.93). These lines sound like they are borrowed from CNN television! Of conservative congregations, he alleges, "A church can be ‘sound' while excluding black people from its midst" (p. 174). No one approves of such conduct today. All would condemn it. He would be hard pressed to find such a congregation in our nation. Does his broad brush condemnation include his liberal congregations?

The change agents are determined to make the thought of Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone the basis of our faith! No doubt it is the basis of theirs but the rest of us will rest our faith on the foundation of the New Covenant of Christ. No preacher or church is as neglectful of the cross as the liberal who disregards the will of the crucified one who expects his disciples to "obey all things whatsoever (he) commanded" (Matt. 28:20).

He faults A. Campbell for assuming that most of his contemporaries understood the atonement of Christ and that the major challenge at hand was restoring the ancient order of things–and focusing energies on calling people into Christian union on the basis of the ancient order (p. 116).

Allen asserts that our "mindset sought hard facts and precisely stated propositions. It sought formulas and equations whereby on might exercise ever greater control over the world" (p. 117). Would he tell us the name of one person in the church of the last two centuries who sought this!

He faults us for our desire to understand metaphorical language, but does he not attempt to explore obscure and poetic and symbolic language? Of course he does.

He cites Bill Love who claims to have surveyed hundreds of books of Restoration sermons over five generations. (Being very familiar with the literature of our brethren, I wonder where he found hundreds of books of sermons?) Bro. Love selected five preachers of five generations (25 in all) and exploring their published sermons, he concluded that "in general our movement has failed to preach the ‘word of the cross.' Love's survey is not scientific. The average preacher normally preaches upwards of 100 sermons per year. Most influential preachers may well have preached 200 or more times per year. Few preachers publish their sermons in books and most who do only publish a handful of the sermons they preach, some 20-30 in a book. Few preachers have more than one or two books of sermons published. In addition to sermons, preachers usually teach two or more Bible classes per week and many have newspaper, radio or television lessons which also are occasions for teaching fundamental themes of the faith such as the ‘word of the cross.' Before Love or Allen can conclude that all preachers have failed to preach on this theme, they must be have analyzed the content of every sermon preached, every class taught, every article written. Not just the title, but the contents. This seems to be an assumption he first made and then selected some evidence to try to prove his assumption. What kind of record do Love and Allen have? Has anyone analyzed their preaching, teaching and writing to see just what percentage of it focuses on the ‘word of the cross?'

Allen has a low and critical estimate of his brethren in the Churches of Christ. He finds his message and his delight in the liberal theologians and philosophers of Protestantism and the world.

He says that to follow the way of the cross, "We will require a community that stands in sharp contrast to the dominant social order." Do ACU or the mega Churches of the change agents live in sharp contrast to the dominant social agreement? He says, "Jesus' way calls in short, for character traits and moral skills that appear either incomprehensible, foolish, or impossible to a world schooled only in the ethic of self-advancement' (p. 163). But the change agents strive to build their worldly mega churches by making common cause with the world!

He tells us that, "By dwelling in Christ's body, which is the church, the Spirit continues Christ's incarnation" (p. 165). Could he please give us a Scripture for this statement.... a favorite of the change brotherhood. Perhaps he found that in "The Second Incarnation" by Shelly and Harris.

He repeatedly cites J. S. Lamar's Organon of Scripture, written and published in 1859 as having profoundly warped the ability of our brethren to properly understand scriptures. It is not likely that a hundred of our preachers have heard of, much less read Bro. Lamar's book. I happened to have read it. When one first assumes his point and then seeks for supporting evidence he is liable to say anything!

Allen and his fellow change agents are "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (II Tim. 3:7).

I am pleased to report that Dr. Allen is now a visiting professor at Biola University in California, a Baptist school. There his theology fits his benefactors. It is a blessing for the church and the young Christians who would be under his blighting influence were he still teaching in one of our schools. If he cannot find his way back to the simple faith and practice of New Testament Christianity, we should pray that he will stay there.

__________________________________
Reviewed by John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

[emph., d.c.]


CHRIST—NO MORE, NO LESS


In this book Milton Jones proposes to teach us "How to be a Christian in a Postmodern World." It was published by Leonard Allen's New Leaf Books, a familiar name in "change" literature. The author's stated design is to help us understand postmodernism so we can be more effective witnesses for Christ. Discerning readers will conclude, however, that the author himself has embraced postmodernism and is molding his ministry to its canons in order to attract and keep young postmoderns under his influence.

He asks, "How do we fit Christianity in a postmodern world?" (p. 20). This is surely the wrong question. We should be asking how can we help those lost in the maze of postmodernism escape and find salvation in Christ?

On page 20, the writer relates how "many churches" are trying to adapt and survive in the postmodern world. Some "are taking more of an Eastern approach to religion by emphasizing an inner subjectivism and allowing for the validity of all religions." "Others are changing or softening their core beliefs. Congregations are giving in to the intellectual marketplace where whatever is popular becomes the rule of thumb for the church." "The new trend is to create a church that is more pleasing to people of the postmodern mind, while avoiding those who do not fit into the postmodern philosophy." In these quotes Jones paints a vivid picture of the change churches among us that are willing to sacrifice everything and try anything to attract or hold on to people who want religion without the demands of Christ revealed in he Word.

He knows and states the correct answers to the postmodern challenge: "In the postmodern world, Christianity must be seen as distinctive and not something that can be changed to fit an ever-changing mold." "Christianity and postmodernism, in many of their foundational tenets are mutually exclusive" (p. 20). "In postmodernism we are to leave everyone alone and celebrate diversity..." "The heart of the Christian message is not the celebration of diversity..." (p. 33). How truly said! But his problem is in following his own better judgment. His practice is to change the church to fit the ever-changing mold of the world. Paul plainly says, "Be not conformed to the world" (Rom. 12:2).

He says, "The church itself started to act as if it had everything figured out." (p. 74). "In the postmodern world, no one can be sure of anything. But it goes deeper than that. No one can tolerate anyone who is sure of something." (p. 49). It is a cardinal rule of postmodernism that no one can be sure of anything, or be certain that he has figured out anything, especially in the realm of moral and spiritual truth. One of the chief complaints of change agents against us is that we are too sure of our faith! They are intolerant of those who refuse their program! Thus he joins them in this conclusion. "In the church of my heritage,(i.e., Churches of Christ, JHW), we tried to figure out everything it took to be the right church. ... It was called Restorationism... But too often we put the emphasis on our work of discovering the ancient pattern rather than God's revelation of his current movement" (p. 75). Perhaps he would explain just what kind of revelation from God concerning his current movement he and his tribe are looking for? Have they received such revelations? If such are available, why do we need the Bible?

He quotes Mike Regele, "Thousands of churches are about to die..." "A local church has only two options as its surrounding culture moves from modernity to postmodernity. It can die because of its resistance to change or it can die in order to be reborn as something new. Either way the church as we know it will die. Most churches are choosing the first alternative. The second choice is possible only if old structures and approaches and perspectives give way to new ones" (p. 87). From this quote we can deduce that Jones believes that churches that resist the change movement are doomed to die. This, by the way, is what the progressives said a hundred years ago of our fathers who refused to embrace their call for instruments of music in worship and missionary societies. Strangely they survived and flourished and the change agents (Disciples of Christ) have been in decline ever since. We agree that those churches embracing the change agenda will be changed to such an extent that they will "reborn as something new," i.e., a new denomination, even if, God forbid, they still use the name Church of Christ. Many churches will die as a result of change agents sowing seeds of discord that splinter and scatter their members.

Jones says, "In reality, society needs someone to stand up and say when something is wrong" (p. 93). This is true, but such is contrary to the change philosophy. They only have criticism for the Christians and congregations that refuse to follow them into the world of change.

He reminds us, "In our culture today, the facts are not enough to convince. In fact they may not even be heard coherently by the masses. Without a story there is little change for belief" (p. 101). One wonders, who told him this and on what authority? "You don't have to prove the story or analyze it to death-just tell it" (p. 103). But I Thess. 5:19-20 says, "Prove all things...."

He glowingly speaks of "Fred Craddock, the great teacher of preachers" (p. 102). Mr. Craddock is the darling of the change professors and preachers. He is a minister of the liberal Disciples of Christ denomination and a professor at Emory University. By giving heed to teachers of this stripe many good men are now enmeshed in the snares of the postmodern change movement.

He tells us, "Post modern worship must be something altogether different. It must celebrate the joy of life in Christ. It must be centered in the retelling of the story in such a way that the worshipers find themselves inside the story even as they worship" (p. 103). Perhaps he could explain why it took some 2000 years to discover that man must have a postmodern type of worship? The result of postmodern thinking and behavior is a society of chaos, confusion and disintegration. Why should Christians even think of following their crooked path? "The focus in a postmodern world must be upon participating in the story that rests at the heart of the Bible" (p. 105). Does he mean we must give them a role in a drama program for the worship service? "The story then become the shaping influence in our lives and the evidences of their truth resides not in scientific proof, but rather in the fact that Christians pattern their lives by them" (p. 105). To teach sinners the gospel in the words of and by the example of Christ and his apostles is distasteful to postmodern change agents. They seek to discredit such old fashioned efforts by likening them to dry scientific experiments. What if Christians pattern their lives after false stories? Does such matter in a postmodern church?

To Jones, "A blessing of postmodernism is that it will create a culture unresponsive to legalistic, works-oriented churches" (p 122). In case you haven't understood, it is us who refuse to follow the pied-pipers of change to whom he has reference.

"Change has been extremely difficult for churches as the modern world has given way to the postmodern. However churches that are interested in evangelism will do more than change for the sake of change. They will have to change for the sake of the mission. They will have to change in order to help younger people find Christ" (p. 124). Millions have been taught and brought to salvation through the preaching of the gospel such as was common among our brethren. It is a venture fraught with risk to assume the church will prosper by abandoning the tried and proven Bible mandate of preaching the word (II Tim. 4:2) for postmodern story-telling.

"Older church members, accustomed to modern thought and modern churches will be reluctant to change. But that reluctance may thwart the church from accomplishing its mission" (p. 124). It grieves agents of change to think that any Christians are so stubborn in their faith as to resist their calls for change.

"One of our problems as Christians is that we may have spent too much energy maintaining our umbrage against postmodernism. Our approach has been that we are right and they are wrong. Such an inflexible tactic in dealing with those of another viewpoint doesn't work well in our current age of tolerance." (p. 124) A change agent does not protest, because he has embraced this new world view and is willing to adjust his Christianity to fit into its mold. The following quote verifies this conclusion. "Christians who actually want to see change should not react in a hostile way to postmodern people" (p. 124-125).

"Paul's unique realization is that there are indeed, many other Christians, but they are not all exactly alike" (p. 134). Note his implication that Christians may be found in all sorts of denominational bodies. Does he include Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, The Jonestown Cult and David Koresh's Cult?

"Postmodernists tend to have a negative, irreverent spirt towards the church and even toward people in general" (p. 135). So do change agents. An entire book could be assembled of negative, irreverent quotes directed at Churches of Christ and their past and present ministers, who did not and will not accept the change agenda.

He cites columnist George Will, "Today, however there also seems to be s small-minded, mean-spirited resentment of those who rise, a reluctant to give credit where it is due, a flinching from unstinting admiration, a desire to disbelieve in the rewarded virtue of the few" (p. 136). Mr. Will was writing about baseball, but Jones applies these words to those of us who fail to appreciate the efforts of change agents to capture and redesign the church into a worldly denomination! He continues from Will, "We have a swamp of journalism suited to such an age, a journalism infused with a corrosive, leveling spirit..." (p. 136). These lines Jones directs at those who dare to express in print their objections to his change proposals.

"We could conclude that postmodernism is the ultimate end of human arrogance" (p. 140). We add our Amen. In the spirit of America's liberal political establishment, he writes, “It would be hard to argue with the opinion that the people of the modern West became the most arrogant people in history of the World." (p. 140). What a broad, derogatory generalization. Most of the Christians in the world, including all the change agents, are among those he labels as "arrogant!" I suspect the author excludes himself and fellow-change agents from this judgment.

He says, "The church needs a prophetic ministry that will mature, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us" (p. 144). Having read sixteen books promoting change, I am impressed at the repetition I find in them, both in ideas and phrases. "Prophetic ministry" is one of them. I wonder from whom they borrowed it?

Because of its watery content and opaqueness, this book is not the serious threat that some change productions are. The author failed in his purpose to inform us about the threat and challenge of postmodernism because he, knowingly or unknowingly, is in it up to his neck. In reality, the author is an apostle for a postmodern version of Christianity.

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

Another "New Testament" has hit the market, titled “Good As New: A Radical Retelling of the Scriptures,” the latest in the Change Movement’s never-ending passion to produce more “exciting,” “up-to-date,” “politically correct,” and “culturally relevant” biblical paraphrases. Written by John Henson, whom the Associated Press described as being a “fundamentalist-hating Baptist” from Great Britain, the book is not only further described as the “wildest, wackiest and possibly worst of those trendy attempts to update Holy Writ,” but also as “women, gay and sinner friendly.”

The book has been endorsed by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who proclaims the translation to be “of extraordinary power.”

An exceedingly loose treatment of the Scriptures, Henson’s book seems to imply approval for unwed heterosexual and homosexual couples, among many other “doctrinally denuded” passages. For example, compare the KJV passage of First Cor. 7:2, “Nevertheless, (to avoid) fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” to Henson’s version, “My [Paul’s] advice is for everyone to have a regular partner.” Also compare KJV First Cor. 7:9, “But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn” to Henson, “If you know you have strong needs, get yourself a partner. Better than being frustrated!” Henson stresses only “partner” (which can be married or unmarried, heterosexual or homosexual) and avoids specific reference to heterosexual marriage.

One of numerous examples of how the book prefers modern colloquialisms over accurate translations is seen in the paraphrase of Mark 1:10-11: “A pigeon flew down and perched on him. Jesus took this as a sign that God’s Spirit was with him. A voice from overhead was heard saying, ‘That’s my boy!’” Such a paraphrase likens God to a prideful dad sounding off about his son, who has just made a showy spectacle of himself. How many times have we been at children’s sports events and heard some parent yell, “That’s my boy!” when their son scored a goal, touchdown, basket, or hit a home run? Such a paraphrase reduces Scripture to worldly elements and violates Romans 12:2 and James 4:4.

Worse, Henson completely deletes eight New Testament books, because they “don’t suit him”: 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, 2nd Peter, 2nd and 3rd John, Jude, and Revelation.

Clearly, “Good As New” cannot be seriously taken as a legitimate Bible except perhaps by the biblically illiterate and naïve, who mistakenly assume that all Bible translations and paraphrases are alike and present the same Word of God. That reasoning is just as fallible and dangerous as the reasoning that as long as you “love” and have a “heart for Jesus,” everything else about the Bible is “disputable”; that as long as you “love your partner,” mutual co-habitation (live-in girlfriend or boyfriend) is acceptable, that marriage and gender of that partner are irrelevant.

Heisenberg noted that if you want to determine the position and velocity of an ELECTRON you have lots of problems because it would be like trying to define the position and shape of a bowling ball by shooting bowling balls off of it. But, that only works with SUBATOMIC PARTICLES. You can line up a million atoms on the head of a pin and an electron is almost infinitely small compared to the total atom.

This advancement of science was used in the same way by the SOPHISTS who decided that the uncertainty by, say discovering that the earth was round, could be turned into a Lucifer like TRAFFICK. That was before the time of Christ.

We have noted that the daisy chain of "scholars" FLOODING the brotherhood trying to wash away the church do not have the physical possibility of quoting men like Lucian of Samosata or Luther without lying about them. Well, perhaps it is INTELLECTUAL INCEST where doctors quote doctors who lied about Luther. That fits with the STRONG DELUSION promised by God for those who tamper with the Word of God as latter day PROFITS.

All generations are "modern" and the next infant born is "post modern" and knows, within a few years, that he is God's awaited Messiah. Of the victory of the Catholic church over paganism. Of the victory of the Catholic church over paganism:

"The generation that arose in the world, after the promulgation of Imperial laws, was ATTRACTED within the pale of the Catholic Church, and so RAPID, yet so GENTLE was the fall of Paganism, that only twenty-eight years after the death of Theodosius [the elder], the faint and minute vestiges were no longer visible to the eye of the legislator." Now, how can this great and rapid revolution be accounted for? Is it because the Word of the Lord has had free course and been glorified?

Then, what means the new aspect that the Roman Church has now begun to assume? In exact proportion as Paganism has disappeared from without the Church, in the very same proportion it appears within it.

Pagan dresses for the priests, Pagan festivals for the people, Pagan doctrines and ideas of all sorts, are everywhere in vogue.

The testimony of the same historian, who has spoken so decisively about the rapid conversion of the Romans to the profession of the Gospel, is not less decisive on this point. In his account of the Roman Church, under the head of "Introduction of Pagan Ceremonies," he thus speaks:

"As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to effect the senses of the vulgar.

If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation.

As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused at noon-day a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion, sacrilegious light." Gibbon has a great deal more to the same effect. Now, can any one believe that this was accidental? No. It was evidently the result of that unprincipled policy, of which, in the course of this inquiry, we have already seen such innumerable instances on the part of the Papacy.

Gibbon distinctly admits this. "It must ingenuously be confessed," says he, "that the ministers of the Catholic Church imitated the profane model they were so impatient to destroy."

He has seen that, about the very time when the Bishop of Rome was invested with the Pagan title of Pontifex, the Saviour began to be called Ichthys, or "the Fish," thereby identifying Him with Dagon, or the Fish-god; and that, ever since,

advancing step by step, as circumstances would permit, what has gone under the name of the worship of Christ,

has just been the worship of that same Babylonian divinity, with all its rites and pomps and ceremonies, precisely as in ancient Babylon.

The Catholic Church confesses that SHE stole musical instruments because they were COMMON IN ALL CULTS.

http://www.piney.com/MuCandles.html

Nothing is clearer in history than the adoption by successful rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the forces they deposed. -Will and Ariel Durant

When once it was proved that the Pope was willing to adopt Paganism under Christian names, the Pagans and Pagan priests would be his most hearty and staunch defenders.

And when the Pope began to wield lordly power over the Christians, who were the men that he would recommend--that he would promote--that he would advance to honour and power? Just the very people most devoted to "the worship of the strange god" which he had introduced into the Christian Church.

Gratitude and self-interest alike would conspire to this. Jovinian, and all who resisted the Pagan ideas and Pagan practices, were excommunicated and persecuted.

Ask Milton Jones about those weeping widows.

DISCOVERING OUR ROOTS (A Review)



In 1988 Leonard Allen and Richard Hughes gave us Discovering Our Roots: The Ancestry of Churches of Christ, published by Abilene Christian University Press. While other books have been written to undermine the foundations of the Church of Christ, this was one of the first written by men claiming to be faithful brethren. Since this volume was issued, the attacks have grown bolder and more venomous. Now a sizable band of dissidents have declared open war on the church and are attempting to occupy the kingdom of Christ and make it their own.

To disarm their readers, the authors assure us, “We do not seek to demean the church by implying that it is only a human institution, nor do we want to ridicule the church through a cynical treatment of history. And we do not wish to disturb our sisters and brothers by calling into question cherished beliefs and suppositions" (p. 8). But that is precisely what they proceed to do. They write under the guise of being friends of the church, brethren whom we should trust and follow, but in reality they are subversives whose mission is to weaken the foundations of our faith in order that other teachers and books might be able to bring it crashing down. In large part they have succeeded. Again they tell us, "We did not write this book simply to praise the tradition in which we stand" (p. xii). This is the understatement of the year, for the purpose of the book is to paint a new picture of our past and persuade the unknowing that the Church of Christ is nothing more than a misguided band of sectarians who mistakenly think they have restored the faith and practice of the apostolic church.

The authors open with a verse from Wendell Berry that well sums up their shipwrecked faith. Speaking of the important landmarks of the past, "my mind grew new, and lost the backward way." And such they have!

The declared intention of the authors is to explore the roots or ancestry of the Churches of Christ. These they find in the Renaissance, the Reformation, among the Puritans and the Baptists and the "American Experience." No discerning student of church history would deny that we have connections with these various influences. While the authors do briefly mention that we have roots in the biblical documents, they proceed to develop their thesis that we are primarily the product of the non-biblical forces mentioned above. The possibility that the ultimate roots of those who desire to be simply Bible Christians are in the teaching of Christ and his apostles and the church they planted in Palestine some 2,000 years ago is evidently foreign to their thinking. They fail to take into consideration that the Word of God is the seed of the kingdom (Lk. 8:11). Wherever it is planted in good and honest hearts, no matter the generation, it will produce the same kind of disciples and church that it produced in the beginning.

This book is not without some value for the careful reader. It is like eating bony fish; while there are some bites of worthwhile information about church history, about others who also were interested in restoration and about our own history, there are many bones which could cause serious injury to one’s faith if swallowed. Its greatest value is that it clearly reveals the denominational origins of the "new hermeneutic," a key ingredient of the change agenda, their new found doctrines on grace and salvation and their rejection of the New Testament as a pattern that God expects us to follow. Their inspiration, the reader will see, is found in the theology of Dr. Martin Luther.

This is a book filled with false assumptions.

1. They tell us, "We (Churches of Christ) have often assumed that our roots are simply in the New Testament and that we really have not been shaped in any significant way by the intervening history" (p. 2). While there may be some with no training or awareness of our movement's past who would say such, the average preacher has not thought so!
   
   
2. They say that to see our roots as essentially biblical "lures us into thinking that we can escape history and tradition entirely..." (p. 3). No educated preacher of the gospel would make this silly assumption.
   
   
3. They assert that, "We ... have simply failed to recognize the traditions at work in our midst" (p. 3). True, all have some traditions. But not all traditions are harmful or contrary to God's Will. It is true that some have traditions they do not recognize. The point missed is that most brethren desire to hold fast to the Word of God and not allow unscriptural traditions to grow up in their midst. When they recognize them, they are willing to admit them and either reject them or modify them so they no longer go against God's Will. The motive of the change agents, with all their talk about traditions, is not to point out our traditional time of assembling or of having gospel meetings, or song leaders; it is to subtly convince the unsuspecting that all we believe and hold dear is nothing more than human tradition. Especially those distinctives that embarrass ecumenically minded change agents, such as weekly communion, acappella singing, our distinctive names, insistence on immersion as a condition of salvation, etc.
   

The authors labor under the misapprehension that we as a people don't realize that we have historic roots in human history as well as in the apostolic age. But we deny their greater assumption that therefore we are just another denomination. "Since those early days, members of Churches of Christ often have assumed they are a people with no history and no tradition, a people whose only roots lie in the Bible itself" (p. 110). Yet no one has ever said this save the change agents. It is the figment of their fevered imagination. "For restoration ... often begets a sense of historylessness, an identification with the first century church so strong that the intervening history becomes irrelevant or even abhorrent" (p. 152). They need to show us such a preacher or teacher of note among us.

A telling quote is offered from Huldreich Zwingli, "the clear and pure light, the Word of God, has been dimmed, confused and diluted with human principles and teachings so that all those who call themselves Christians do not know the divine will. They only have their self-invented worship, holiness and external spiritual knowledge which is man-made" (p. 21). This quote is a perfect description of those preachers, professors and congregations that have embraced the change agenda and are promoting it among our brethren.

(To be continued…)

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

Continued—


DISCOVERING OUR ROOTS (A Review)



They reveal the basis of their new theology. They tell us, “Lutheran and Reformed (churches) had different approaches to the Scripture...Does the Bible provide a complete blueprint for all time, laying out the details of church government, forms of worship, and rules for behavior? Or does it rather provide a central core of saving truth, leaving many of the details to human discretion and changing circumstances of time and place?" (emp. mine, JHW). Luther took the latter approach and so have the change agents! (p. 23-24). "Luther believed that Zwingle's insistence on making scripture the exclusive norm for the entire life of the church, including its forms of worship, turned gospel into a new legalism (p. 28). This has become the theme of the change agents ever since they discovered it!

They use examples from other reformers to land subtle blows against their brethren of the Church of Christ. Of Roger Williams, "He saw with keen vision just how easy it was to delude oneself into thinking that one had fully restored the true church. He understood how easy it was to let such smug certitude cloak self-serving ends and justifies mistreatment of opponents." (p. 60). They intend this as a slap at those of us who are strongly committed to the restoration ideal and who are confident in the success of our efforts.

They cite Zwingle, whose extremism even "excluded all audible music from the Christian assembly," as where a strong commitment to restoration can take a body of people (p. 27). In this they imply that this is the natural end of those who insist on restoring the faith and worship of the early church.

In this book, the authors set forth their proposition that rather than a true restoration of primitive Christianity, the restoration fathers were tainted in their thinking by the influence of John Lock and the Common Sense School of Philosophy. They prefer the mystical approach of the pre-modern age, i.e., the dark ages. It is remarkable that virtually all the change agents prefer mysticism, subjectivism and emotionalism to a studied, objective, reasonable approach to understanding God's Word. Perhaps this is because their new-found doctrines and practices cannot be upheld or justified if Scripture is read and interpreted just as any other book of instruction would be.

They remind us that "Baptists, Mormons, Shakers and other radical sects intended to restore primitive Christianity." Their implication is that our restoration movement is not unique nor anything special (p. 89). In their thinking, our brotherhood of churches is of the same value as that of the Mormons, Shakers and Baptists.

They labor to show that our movement was really only a product of social and political idealism prevalent in America in the late 18th and early 19th century; a quest for social and political freedom from the old European tyranny (p. 92) and from the tyranny of the old state churches.

They tell us, "No group uses the language of ‘restoration" more consistently and more effectively than did the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or the Mormons" (p. 94). I am certain that such commendation warms the cold heart of Joseph Smith Jr. Good pluralists and multiculturalists that they are, they can compare the LSD church with us, without noting the vast differences in the two groups. To put the goals and intentions of Joseph Smith in the same category with those of Stone and Campbell and other of our early restorers is slanderous. To leave the impression that the Mormon church is in any way related to the Church of Christ is no less. It leaves one to wonder if they see any real difference. If both are sects founded by men, then there is no essential difference. One wonders if they would have any problem embracing the Mormons as their fellow-Christians?

In discussing Elias Smith and Abner Jones and their New England Christians, they fail to note that many of those disciples flowed into Stones' restoration movement. They say, "the movement (New England Christians), ultimately merged into the United Church of Christ, a contemporary denomination..." (p. 102). We would like to know if they consider this good or bad? If unity is the most important item on their agenda, then they would have to commend this merger.

They tell us, "Even believer's baptism, acknowledged by practically all Stoneites as apostolic, was simply left to the discretion of the individual." They fail to note that they soon became uniform in the conviction of the necessity of immersion for salvation (p. 104). This book is noteworthy for the things the authors do not tell us. It is a selective "telling of the story" as change agents like to say, in order to paint the picture the way they want it to be...not necessarily as it really was.

They say, the "Stoneites' primitivism equally stressed the hastening of the millennial kingdom of God... (they) were convinced that the millennium was near" (Note: they offer no citations for their assertions about the role that millennialism played in their preaching and writing (p. 105). It is no secret that many of the early pioneers held mixed and confused ideas about the millennium. But it is the case that they were not trying to make those assumptions an essential aspect of the movement. In fact they wrote and said relatively little of the subject. The authors are trying to convince the unknowing that our fathers were wrong in rejecting the premillennialism of R. H. Boll and his disciples (ca. 1920-1945) and that we should not allow the millennial speculation of our denominational neighbors hinder our accepting them in fellowship, especially those of the Christian Churches.

(To be continued…)

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

If you remember, Jesus warned that "doctors of the Law take away the key to knowledge." These would have included the Scribes who REWROTE God's History specifically, according to Jesus, so that the Pharisees could teach THEIR OWN doctrine to PREVENT the teaching of God's Word.

I have looked as some of the HISTORY revisioned by Hughes and Allen and remembering that they are "doctors of the Law" find that they are completely DETACHED from the Bible, church history and especially the history of the Restoration Movement.

http://www.piney.com/Restoration-Roots.html

They do not represent the views articulated by the Campbells but are STONEITES. Their "restoration" roots grow out of ancient and even fairly modern Devil worship in modern Iraq or Babylonia.

http://www.piney.com/Layard8.html

Saying that the ANTI-instrumental churches of Christ LACK history is based on the historian's total ignorance of TRUE history which you cannot PROCURE from another Phd. In my review I point you to the TRUE writers of history. These prove that NOT being forced to "bow or burn" in paganistic, musical worship is totally consistent with the History of the Bible and 100% of TRUE writers of church history. The view of baptism as for its purpose is 100% faithful to ALL true church history until Zwingli in 1525 gave birth to the VIEWS of the hate mongers out of the stolen universities.

My reading of Satan's introduction of MUSIC to produce MADNESS which the pagans sell as HOLY spirit--especially if it makes you puke and attack the priestess in the holy place--was understood by ALL of church history BUT APPROVED by Satanic cults. Therefore, the ANTI-instrumentalists did not BEGIN to do what they had NEVER DONE. Nor did they STOP doing something. Therefore, you have to have been driven MAD to believe and make HATE ATTACKS on those who FEED you.

As far as I can determine, the Stoneites as late as 1878 latched onto the word PSALLO translated as MELODY to try to JUSTIFY the massive sowing of discord they had produced with NO NEED for Bible authority or CIVIL concern for others. But EXTERNAL psallo or melody meant "shoot reall arrows, shoot love arrows" or "shoot out hymns."

Nevertheless, like the elders of ISRAEL who fired God by demanding SET A KING OVER US, modern elders have SOLD THEIR OWN souls and the prophecy for the first KINGS was that they would move on from CANAAN land to Babylonian captivity. Those getting a sensory orgasm from the worship TEAM and their productions have had their feet NAILED to the diverted TRAIN to Babylon. The universal theory and glad confession is that musical performers of religionism were the HAREM OF THE GODS or DEMONS. I KNOW that it sounds obscene, but THAT was the PURPOSE of music as "worship." I say that they have hitched a ride on the back of the prophecied "Babylon Whore" who in John's view from Patmos was CIRCE or KIRKE. That is why literates say assembly or SKUL even as do Jews of their synagogue.

Ken

Continued—


DISCOVERING OUR ROOTS (A Review)


We are told, "As the years passed, Campbell and his followers ... increasingly accepted unity in pluralistic diversity and subtly downplayed a strict adherence to the restoration ideal" (p. 109). No citations are offered for this assertion. They do not proceed to explain that those who "accepted unity in pluralistic diversity and ... downplayed a strict adherence to the restoration ideal, parted company with us at the opening of the 20th century and evolved into the ultra liberal Disciples of Christ denomination. They seek to paint Campbell in the tone of their present day "change" apostasy. It is true that Campbell's militancy tempered as he grew older. It is true that he hoped to lead the various Protestant bodies back to the Bible. It is true that in his latter years he embraced such error as the American Christian Missionary Society which he had rejected in his younger years. That just proves that Campbell was a fallible leader. It is precisely the reason that our brethren have never considered him more than a brilliant preacher, writer and educator. We never viewed him or revered him as our founder, as the creator of our belief system, or as our authority for what we belief or do. The scholars of the Change Movement seem determined to paint Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone as our founders and their writings as the standard by which our faith and practice must be measured.

They tell us, "… the Common Sense (school of philosophy) perspectives rendered their (our restoration forefathers) emerging traditions essentially invisible, at least to themselves. When on occasion they recognized their traditions, moreover, they viewed them as an essentially biblical, primitive, and apostolic and not in any sense the traditions of a particular people..." (p. 109-110). They are set on painting our faith and practice as only traditions such as those of the Baptist, Methodists, in order that we can be more easily convinced to give them up to the clamor of the change agents. With no apparent love or respect for the Church of Christ, they lay the axe to her foundations.

Chapter 10 of this book is worth the price of the book. The authors devote ten pages to "Restoring the Gospel of Grace: Martin Luther." They here reveal the roots and foundations of the change theology. Read this chapter carefully and you will understand what the new gospel of the change movement is all about. It will put twenty other of their books in clear perspective.

• The authors are enamored with the theology of Martin Luther. Especially his emphasis on salvation by faith alone and the rejection of scripture as the law of God (p. 114-115).
  
  
• They identify with his rejection of the New Testament as a pattern for our emulation. Note these quotes which they offer without contradiction.
  
  
  1. "For Luther, the divine Word was spoken supremely in the person of Jesus Christ, not in a mere book" (p. 116).
     
     
  2. "For Luther the Bible functioned much like a window in a house...It is possible...to so focus on the window that one fails to see beyond it..." (p. 116).
     
     
  3. "When Luther proclaimed ‘scripture alone' he always was proclaiming ‘Christ alone'" (p. 116). How does he know this contradictory assertion to be true?
     
     
  4. "Luther could point to, "an inner canon of Scripture...a ‘canon within a canon' consisting of those writings that most clearly reveal Christ." This idea shows up repeatedly in the writings of later change agents.
     
     
  5. "For Luther insisted...that there is great danger in looking to external forms and patterns, for one is tempted to think that in restoring outward forms alone one has restored the essence. For Luther, the outward forms constitute only an empty shell" (117). This is the basis for change theology.
     
     
  6. They tell us that for Luther, "All the external marks and structures were expendable in restoring and preserving this gospel, the living Word" (p. 117). The theme of change agents is here revealed.
     
     
  7. "Luther therefore did not look for the restoration of a church that had been entirely lost, but rather for the reformation of a church that had been seriously corrupted” (p. 117). This evidently is the change agents’ idea of what we are about today.
     
     In a section under "Reform of the Church" they write:
     
     
  8. "Luther's view of the hiddenness of the true church led him to reject and warn against the mere imitation of biblical examples and patterns" (p. 118). This is a plank in their new hermeneutic.
     
     
  9. "The first task of church renewal, Luther believed, was not restoration of biblical patterns, but rather restoration of the gospel message of divine grace, the recovery of the living Word (i.e. Jesus) through which faith was stirred up and through which believers received forgiveness. Fixation on biblical forms and patterns he believed, too easily obscured the centrality of grace and faith" (p. 118). This is the program the change agents have in mind for us.
     
     
  10. "Luther saw serious dangers in the imitation of biblical models" (p. 119). So do change agents!
      
      
  11. "For Luther the early age of the church was not an ideal age to which those in the present must return" (p. 121). Here is the basis for change thinking.
      
      
  12. "Luther viewed the effort to restore the patterns and traditions of primitive Christianity fundamentally at odds with the gospel" (p. 119), and so do our change agents.
      
      
  13. "Such Restorationism, Luther believed, placed human effort above God's grace and was therefore the worst sort of idolatry" (p. 120).
      
      
  14. They quote Luther as saying "we do not want to follow any example ... we want the Word for the sake of which all works, examples, and miracles occur" (p. 120). This is the theme song of all change agents.
      

It seems to me these men have found their heart's home in the theology of the Lutheran church and they should follow their hearts. Perhaps they could help unite the ten branches of the Lutheran denomination.

They describe how the major Protestant churches were seduced by the modern world. "The churches rushed to construct ornate and costly sanctuaries where choirs and organs replaced unadorned congregational singing and where dramatic presentation and church festivals competed with secular organizations for the time and money of the cultured middle class" (p. 139-140). This is a striking contemporary picture of those Churches of Christ caught up in the change movement that is sweeping through our large affluent city and university churches.

Their conclusion and application is expressed thusly: "With such an assumption, a restoration movement easily accumulates an array of full-blown traditions, most of which remain invisible under the traditional rhetoric of scorning tradition."

This book, unlike later volumes by the authors, has some redeeming value; some useful historical information. It is the foundation on which they have erected their house of apostasy. The latter works of other more bolder and militant change agents are full of their ideas and terminology.

It demonstrates that deviation by only a few degrees can over years lead to a total abandonment of the restoration concept. If you want to have a clear and balanced view of the early years of our restoration movement, you are encouraged to read Dr. Earl West's Search for the Ancient Order, available from the Gospel Advocate, or Firm Foundation Book Stores.

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

DOWN IN THE RIVER TO PRAY (A Review)


Dr. John Mark Hicks, professor of theology at David Lipscomb University and Greg Taylor, editor of New Wineskins magazine have given us "Down in the River to Pray." The subtitle of their book is "Revisioning Baptism as God's Transforming Work." The presupposition of the authors is that members of the "traditional" churches of Christ have a faulty understanding of Christian baptism. Their mission is to correct our misperceptions and provide us a new view of the subject. Their interpretation is the product of the "new hermeneutic" that is at work among our university scholars.

Their conclusion is yes, baptism is important; no, it is not essential to salvation; yes, immersion is what the Bible teaches but a sincere believer can be saved although sprinkled in infancy. Yes, Scripture teaches baptism for remission of sins; but no, it is not necessary to understand or believe this.

The book demonstrates how to make a clear and simple matter obscure by means of a "scholarly" approach. It is a vivid illustration of "the language of Ashdod." Following the Babylonian Captivity the Jews were caught up in the pluralism and multiculturalism of their day. Their language was a confusing hodgepodge of Hebrew and Gentile dialects (Neh. 13:24). Hicks and Taylor are enamored with the theological language of denominational seminaries choosing it over Bible terminology. They find it hard to communicate in clear, simple language of Scripture. They prefer the following type of expression: "If we take this ‘narrative' perspective seriously as a narrative indicator, then ‘even when Luke does not enumerate each item of human response and salvific promise comprised in Peter's pronouncements (and he rarely does), those responses and salvific gifts are to be presumed present unless we are given explicit reason to think otherwise" (p. 58). This is classic theobabble! The book abounds in murky expressions designed not to teach the lost the way of salvation but to impress their academic peers with the author's high level of learning and expertise. Blessed is he who can make the difficult easy to be understood. Pity him who takes the simple and makes it obscure. Paul would rather speak five words, easy to be understood than ten thousand words in a tongue (I Cor. 14:19), but he did not have his doctorate from a seminary.

The authors operate under several faulty assumptions:

1. That Alexander Campbell is the standard and authority for establishing our faith.
   
2. That Campbell's Lunenburg Letters trump anything else said by Campbell or other restoration pioneers.
   
3. That all brethren prior to their recent movement held a distorted, unscriptural view of baptism.
   
4. That only scholars such as themselves can properly ferret out the meaning of God's Word.
   
5. They assume the right to be brotherhood critics and interpreters of the faith.
   
6. That we are saved by grace and faith alone, before and without water baptism.
   
7. That Christians must necessarily derive their faith and convictions from theologians and their theologies than from a simple, honest study of God's Word.
   
8. That even when God says something in clear certain terms, scholars such as themselves are not under obligation to accept and obey it.
   
9. They assume the position of reformers without understanding the standard from which many have strayed and to which they should be called!
   

While the reader will find in this book some interesting and useful historical information from the early days of Christianity, the good is far outweighed by the falsity of its conclusions, the confusion it sows and the dangerous recommendations it offers.

The authors do not understand who is and who is not a Christian. Notice, "... further downstream Christians killed and have been killed over their beliefs and practices of baptism" (p. 12). While it is historically true that many Christians were persecuted even unto death because of their obedience to Christ in baptism, I challenge the authors to name us even one "Christian" (by God's definition) who has harmed or killed anyone who differed with him on baptism! Such statements are irresponsible and misleading.

Their purpose is to convince unsuspecting readers that while baptism is something nice to do, it is not essential for salvation. Note this example: "Thus Luke recognizes some believers as disciples (Christians) who had not experienced proper baptism. But this would also mean that he recognized some believers as disciples (Christian) who had not yet received the Holy Spirit" (p. 64). This is the ultimate point they so diligently wish to implant in the minds of unsophisticated readers. Therefore, all of our family, friends and neighbors who believe in Jesus are Christians and we should accept them as such.

The authors' approach is silly and irreverent. Notice: "Jesus dives in with his people who are look for the kingdom of God" (p. 53). Such frivolous language regarding the baptism of our Lord borders on sacrilege.

(To be continued…)

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

Of John Mark Hicks:Martin Luther said, "Your baptism is nothing less than grace clutching you by the throat: a grace-full throttling, by which your sin is submerged in order that ye may remain under grace. Come thus to thy baptism. Give thyself up to be drowned in baptism and killed by the mercy of thy dear God, saying: 'Drown me and throttle me, dear Lord, for henceforth I will gladly die to sin with thy Son" (as quoted in Down in the River to Pray, John Mark Hicks & Greg Taylor, Leafwood Publishers, 2003).

By the definition and condemnation of DOCTORS OF THE LAW, they take away the key to knowledge. You will find it almost universally true that SCHOLARLY QUOTES are taken from OTHER SCHOLARS. This is a way to MAKE POINTS by agreeing. The BAPTISTS rejoice in Hicks quite ignorant look at baptism by claiming that CHURCHES OF CHRIST are now seeing the light. The new LIGHT bulb was forged by Zwingly in 1525 and has been the CORNERSTONE upon which many groups have built their TEMPLE on the "grace only" heresy. However, except for his belief in 'original sin' which led people to sprinkling infants, Martin Luther's views of adult baptism are quite reasonable. Almost as an afterthought he treats infant baptism much like the modern heresy of BABY DEDICATION. Luther wrote:

THE HOLY AND BLESSED SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM

1. Baptism [Die Taufe] is baptismos in Greek, and mersio in Latin, and means to plunge something completely into the water, so that the water covers it. Although in many places it is no longer customary to thrust and dip infants into the font, but only with the hand to pour the baptismal water upon them out of the font, nevertheless the former is what should be done. It would be proper, according to the meaning of the word Taufe, that the infant, or whoever is to be baptized, should be put in and sunk completely into the water and then drawn out again. For even in the German tongue the word Taufe comes undoubtedly from the word tier [deep] and means that what is baptized is sunk deeply into the water. This usage is also demanded by the significance of baptism itself.

For baptism, as we shall hear, signifies that the old man and the sinful birth of flesh and blood

are to be wholly drowned by the grace of God.

We should therefore do justice to its meaning and make baptism a true and complete sign of the thing it signifies. [Signifies does not mean just a SYMBOL.]

3. The significance of baptism is a blessed dying unto sin and a resurrection in the grace of God, so that the old man, conceived and born in sin, is THERE drowned, and a new man, born in grace, comes forth and rises.

Thus St. Paul, in Titus 3[:5], calls baptism a "washing of regeneration," since in this washing a person is BORN again and made new.

As Christ also says, in John 3[:3, 5], "Unless you are born again of water and the Spirit (of grace), you may not enter into the kingdom of heaven." For just as a child is drawn out of his mother's womb and is born, and through this fleshly birth is a sinful person and a child of wrath [Eph. 2:3],


so one is drawn out of baptism and is born spiritually. Through this spiritual birth he is a child of grace and a justified person. Therefore sins are drowned in baptism, and in place of sin, righteousness comes forth.

Rather than salvation BY GRACE or BY FAITH only, Ephesians 2 proves that BAPTISM is the ongoing PROOF that God saves by "grace through faith."

I notice that the HEAD of the Lipscomb Bible program AFFIRMS HICK'S brand new BAPTIST baptism or Believer's Baptism which is identical to ancient Pagan Baptism BECAUSE you are already saved. Martil Luther repudiates that.

I claim that the THROAT CLUTCHING is some more ShellyLand "taking liberties" with all truth.

Ken

Continued—


DOWN IN THE RIVER TO PRAY (A Review)


As they survey church history they admit, "one constant was a consensus understanding that baptism was for the remission of sins and that the unbaptized saved adult was a rare exception" (p. 94). Too bad they and other change agents do not believe this. One of their cardinal points is that baptism is not essential for remission of sins.

They tell us, "Ultimately, Alexander Campbell merged the Calvinian meaning of baptism as a means of grace with the Anabaptist practice of believers baptism" (p. 133). They ignore or impugn the historical and biographical record that Campbell went back to the Bible and found his understanding there. Since they derive their faith from theologians, they assume all other Christians must have done the same. They appeal to Campbell's Lunenburg Letters to establish their doctrine that baptism is not essential to forgiveness and therefore there are Christians among the sects (p. 140-141). These letters are the perennial appeal of all who wish to abandon the Restoration plea. The authors are truly Campbellites.

"Those of us in the Stone-Campbell tradition who hold a high view of baptism are passionate about our understand. We believe it is biblical and we resist any deflation of baptism's significance” (p. 191). We dispute their claim to a high view of baptism. This book belies their claim. They hold the same view as the Baptist church and deny the essentiality of baptism for a person's salvation. Throughout the book they generally refer to "the Stone-Campbell Movement" rather than to churches of Christ. One can't help but wonder if they are ashamed of the name church of Christ and the Christians who are members thereof? Allegedly they are members of the church of Christ!

Their kind of religious practice: Taylor describes a baptismal scene in Uganda, "With the baptismal plunge and lift of every person, the crowd surrounding the grave erupted in wild laughter, slapping their knees and smiling. They delighted in watching each person exit the water, spitting and spewing" (p. 222). Is this the kind of emotion-packed, entertaining baptismal services they recommend for their changing churches? Already they have the applauding and the entertainment setting. "For example, at a church camp in the hills of Northeast Oklahoma we would sing Galatians 2:20 over and over, faster and faster the words are burned into our minds..." (p. 232). This type of activity is the wave of the future for churches pursuing the change program.

What they really believe: They tell us,

1. "Baptism is a normative means through which God mediates his grace to us, but God is not limited by this means" (p. 238). I ask, how would we know since in their view there is no way for a church or an individual to know who is and who is not saved, since there is no single discernable way of salvation. This is their bottom line. It is nice to be baptized if you want to, but it’s not really necessary for a loving God will extend mercy to those who fail to do so.
   
   
2. "The efficacy of baptism does not depend upon what we believe about baptism but whether we believe in Christ. The object of faith is Christ, not baptism" (251). Thus if one believes in Christ and becomes comatose or insane, we could immerse him acceptably because it doesn't matter what one knows of or about baptism?
   
   
3. "...we reject rebaptism of those who were baptized as believers... Every immersion that expresses faith in Christ is effectively the grace of God...." (253) What then of those baptized as Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox?
   
   
4. "But the first concrete encounter with God is through baptism which is the gospel in water" (p. 254). It is much better to say our first encounter is when we come to faith. The Baptist preacher Jarrell likewise misunderstood the Bible's message on baptism and charged us with preach "the gospel in water" and so titled his book.
   
   
5. With approval, they cite Jack Cottrell, Christian Church preacher and professor, "we should acknowledge that faith is the sole means of receiving salvation and in this sense agree that people are justified by (that is, by means of ) faith alone" (p. 157). No matter what they say about baptism, this is their salvation message!
   
   
6. "We see no reason why women should not baptize those they led to faith in Christ" (p. 254). Moving women into church leadership roles is another key goal of our change agents!
   

"We believe it's time for a revival in the camps and another preaching down in the river" (p. 255). What would they preach? What would they revive? They are not absolutely sure sinners must be baptized! Poor change agents live such sheltered, cloistered lives. They don't know what is going on in churches of Christ. The theology department of a religious school is not a reflection of congregational life.

They ask, "Is there any unity to be had at the river, where Catholics, Baptists, Methodists and ‘Campbellites' had trod? (p. 256). Here they manifest disrespect for the Lord's people by calling us Campbellites. For 200 years enemies have hurled this epithet of contempt at the church. It has always been rejected forthrightly by those who love Christ and his church! Do they use this as a hateful hiss or as a cute expression to show their ignorance? I can understand them thinking they themselves are Campbellites for they believe Alexander Campbell founded their denomination. These authors, like Esau, readily exchange their biblical heritage for the pottage of denominational theology.

Christian leaders need to read this book, not for information about the biblical teaching on baptism. That is it weakest point. Read it to know what the promoters of change really believe; what their ultimate goal for your congregation is. Those who follow them will be led away from the Word of God and into the swamp of human speculation and opinion. Congregations that embrace their agenda will cease to be churches of Christ, being transformed into yet another denomination. Mark well the names of the authors. You don't want to invite them to speak for your congregation.

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

PARTICIPATING IN GOD'S LIFE (A Review)


This book, authored by C. Leonard Allen and Danny G. Swick, is sub-headed "Two Crossroads for Churches of Christ." They describe it as "an historical/doctrinal study of Spirituality in the heritage of Churches of Christ" (p. 15). Those who read this book will find it to reflect the reasonings of philosopher/theologians who have judged churches of Christ to be a flawed and failed attempt at the religion of Christ. They offer us what they feel is the antidote for our ailments. It is a call for churches of Christ to make the necessary changes to be acceptable to the Postmodern world. Conversely, Jesus and the apostles thought the world should change to be acceptable to God (Rom. 12:2). It helps to understand that the authors have embraced Postmodernism as their guiding philosophy. "We who like to call ourselves postmoderns" (p. 92).

The authors build their story around a brief controversy that erupted in the pages of Alexander Campbell's Millennial Harbinger and the Gospel Advocate between 1857 and 1860. The participants were Dr. Robert Richardson, confidant and coworker of Campbell and Tolbert Fanning, president of Franklin College and editor of the Advocate. Fanning was also a friend and traveling companion of Campbell. They take this exchange of articles between two preachers and declare it to be representative of the entire brotherhood, then and now. Richardson argued that the proper approach to understanding God's will was not by a simple rational reading of it. He insisted the spiritual truths must be understood with the mind and the heart (p. 38). According to him, somewhere in the movement "there remained a ‘serious defect which paralyzes the most earnest efforts and renders comparatively fruitless the most successful proselytism'" (p. 41). According to Allen and Swick, "The problem in fact lay primarily in (the fact that) a human philosophy had infiltrated the camp, blocking the flow of Divine Life..." (p. 42). This criticism is interesting since the authors and their fellow-promoters of change are seeking to introduce the human philosophy of "Postmodernism" into the contemporary church. Richardson argued that Fanning and other leaders had embraced and adopted the Common Sense philosophy of John Locke, a system he disparaged by calling it "dirt philosophy" (p. 42-43). The authors use this derogatory term in referring to the reasoning of brethren who do not share their Postmodern view. It is noteworthy that neither Richardson nor Fanning sought to develop a following based on their views about the Holy Spirit and the Christian.

While focusing their attack on Bro. Fanning, the unspoken target is all of those brethren of the church who do not subscribe to their Postmodern views. It would be revealing to compare the work and accomplishments of the authors with that of Fanning. Theirs pale beside those of his. Much of the success of our churches in the Mid-South flows back to Fanning's labors.

The 15 pages of notes gleaned from this book cannot be thoroughly presented in this brief review. We can only provide a sampling. This book reflects the following views of the authors:

1. That Churches of Christ are a human denomination, seriously flawed and needing renovation.
   
   
2. That as a whole, we have totally misunderstood how to study and understand God's will.
   
   
3. That in general we have failed to understand and thus benefit from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
   
   
4. That as a people we are hopelessly mired in the rationalistic philosophy of John Locke. They would rescue us by leading us to accept Postmodernism.
   
   
5. That the authors have embraced and are calling for a religion of subjectivism and emotionalism.
   
   
6. That by following their doctrine, God will speak to us beyond the Word and "make the words of the Bible a reality in our lives" (p. 76). They look for Divine illumination (p. 48).
   
   
7. That by understanding the Spirit's work as they do, we can walk in a way and engage in practices that are humanely impossible (p. 177).
   
   
8. They recommend to us a "litany" so we can become more consciously "Trinitarian." This would be published so we could repeat it in responsive readings in our worship (p. 188). They also suggest a Trinitarian prayer to be "repeated mentally in the rhythm of one's breathing, inhaling with the first clause of each couplet and exhaling with the second clause" (p. 188). Imagine a Buddhist mantra.
   
   
9. The authors are reaching for a mystical experience with God, such as other pietists have in days past. Their position, by necessity, diminishes the value and importance of Scripture in the life of Christians. It encourages its neglect as they reach for a mystical experience.
   
   
10. The assertions and conclusions set forth in these pages demonstrate that the authors have a very limited and imperfect acquaintance with and understanding of the larger brotherhood of churches of Christ. Perhaps their perception has been distorted by their years in the environment of the seminary.
    
    
11. Their thesis is built upon the premise that members of churches of Christ are devotees of John Locke's Common Sense philosophy. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of our brethren are unacquainted with Locke and have never read a line of his writings. They have constructed a vulnerable straw man and beaten him soundly, but alas their assumption was mistaken.
    
    
12. Readers of the book will get a good sampling of "theobabble." The authors are strong on opaque reasoning and philosophical speculation but weak on Bible knowledge.
    
    

The authors are sure that our fathers made a terrible mistake by not following Richardson's subjective approach to religion. Perhaps they could explain why our churches, with their common sense way of reading the Bible, have flourished far more than those of the Disciples of Christ/Christian Churches who followed Richardson's subjective approach? Do they say that those churches are more spiritual than our brethren?

Of Judas, Jesus said, "good were it for that man if he had not been born' (Mk. 14:21). Of this book, we could say the same. An ancient philosopher once said, "Those who drink from tainted wells can expect to be sickened."

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

ESSAYS ON WOMEN IN EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY (A Review)


This is a massive two volume study edited by Dr. Carroll Osburn of ACU and published by College Press of the Independent Christian Churches. This review covers only Vol. I.

This book was designed with an agenda in mind. The editor is a proponent of the change movement. His later book Women in the Church makes it clear that he embraces the views of Feminism and would like to see women filling roles of public leadership in the church. The authors assembled for this project, with the exception of Everett Ferguson and possibly John T. Willis, seem to question the traditional understanding of public leadership of the church being restricted to Christian men. While they labor to impress their readers that they are really neutral scholars in search of new light, each in his or her own way seeks to clear the road of obstacles so that women may assume roles hitherto closed to them. To most of these scholars any scripture that might appear to limit women from filling public leadership roles is overcome by applying newly found methods of interpretation (The New Hermeneutic) or by declaring it a cultural matter. To them contemporary postmodern culture trumps the Biblical norms.

It is also noteworthy that those participants with connections to churches of Christ have a common bond. They either received their education from or are presently teaching for Abilene Christian University, Harding Graduate School of Religion, David Lipscomb University, Pepperdine University and Harding University. All of these schools save Harding University have been in the forefront of the change movement that is plaguing the church.

The book does contain some interesting information on the role of women in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds by G. Sterling and Jewish women in the Greco-Roman era (by R. Chesnutt), but those looking for helpful exegesis of texts relating to women will be disappointed. In their attempt to be scholarly they have produced a book that few will read and fewer will find understandable and profitable.

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

“WOMEN IN THE CHURCH” (A Review)


Dr. Everett Ferguson has produced an excellent study on the role of women in the Lord's church. This slim book of 80 pages is the best I have encountered on the subject. It is a more than adequate response to the three volumes recently produced by change agents advocating that women be given a place in the public leadership of the church. Bro. Ferguson comes to his task with outstanding educational credentials and a lifetime of scholarly research, teaching and writing. Those of the opposite view cannot scorn him as an unsophisticated writer lacking the scholarly ability to discuss the issue.

His book covers the full spectrum of the subject of women's role in the church. He opens his discussion with a review of the several roles women filled in apostolic times, showing that none of them establish that women preached in the general assemblies of the church.

He then gives us excellent exegetical studies of the passages that most directly deal with the subject.

• From I Cor. 14:27-40 he shows in a clear, concise way that Paul did forbid women to serve as public teachers in the assemblies.
  
  
• In analyzing I Cor. 11:2-16 he identifies the permanent principles of divinely ordained male leadership and throw helpful light on the cultural factors expressed by the head-covering for women.
  
  
• His interpretation of I Tim. 2:1-15 points out Paul's instructions that men lead the church in public prayer and that women are forbidden to each or have authority over men in the same setting.
  
  
• From Gal. 3:28 he shows that although men and women are equal recipients of salvation and a place in God's church, the Lord has given them different functions or assignments.
  
  

He then answers the claims of those who think they have found a biblical basis for women preaching in the church.

The second chapter of his book looks at the evidence from Early Christian History. He surveys the cultural and social history of Jewish, Greek and Roman society, noting the roles filled by women. He notes that the few examples of women preachers are not found among the broader stream of the early churches, but principally among the Montanists and other heretical sects. The overwhelming majority of the churches limited the public teaching and preaching to men.

The author devotes his third chapter to Doctrinal Considerations. In this he considers the doctrinal instruction regarding men and women in the context of the New Testament. He notes that the divine assignments of men and women are based not on culture but on the nature of God and the order of creation.

He establishes that even though all are equal in Christ, be they male or female, Jew or Greek, bond or free, that equality does not abolish the differences inherent to all. In Christ, a slave was still a slave, a Jew was still a Jew and a woman was still a woman. The limitations imposed by God on women stills stand for those in Christ.

He closes with the lines of an ancient Christian author.

"Heresies increased greatly because those who received them were unwilling to learn the mind of the apostles, but followed on their own desires, doing what pleased them and not what was right" (Apostolic Tradition, 43:3).

In only one point did I find myself in disagreement with the author and that in a matter he expressed as his opinion. As pressures mount to open the church's leadership to women, every preacher and elder needs to read this book for the information and ammunition it provides. This book may be ordered from Yeoman Press, 110 Meadowdale Dr. Chickasha, OK 73018.

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

“REDEEMING THE TIMES” (A Review)


This book is sub-headed: "Addressing the Issues of the Church in the Present Age." It consists of chapters by a number of gospel preachers and is edited by Russell Dyer, Tommy Haynes and Jeff Jenkins. The authors, each in his own assigned area, deal with the problems being caused by the promoters of change and the agenda they are pushing upon our churches.

• Jeff Jenkins does a good job calling our people back to serious Bible preaching and teaching that will root and ground our brethren in the ancient faith.
  
  
• Kippy Myers deals with the "Inspiration and Inerrancy of the Bible" which is being questioned by some of the scholars of the change brotherhood.
  
  
• The editors join hands to discuss the matter of "The Silence of the Scriptures" on certain subjects and what our response to that silence must be. They well note that the man who argues that if God does not forbid a thing he must approve it (presumes to know the mind of God).
  
  
• Chuck Monan looks at our past history as religious movement and sets forth the principles that guided our predecessors in the faith. He concedes, "No intelligent observer would deny that there is much room for improvement in churches of Christ" then notes that the fault is not in our method of interpreting the Word, but in living up to that sacred Message. * Gregg Clark discusses the matter of "Law or Love." Since a major premise of the change agents is that Christ saves us by grace therefore we are not in any sense under law, this chapter is very timely. He shows the folly of this view simply by citing those many New Testament verses that speak of the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2).
  
  
• Tommy Haynes deals with the role of culture in determining the faith and practice of the church. Promoters of change are marching in the parade of modem culture. Haynes notes, "This clamor for change is not the fault of the message or the nature of the church. It is the work of a powerful evil entity that wants Christ's message and His body to change." * Tim Pyle points out the dangers of so emphasizing the differences in age groups in the church and a failure to bring these different generations together for fellowship and service. What is needed is more interaction between young and old, not less.
  
  
• Lindsey and Thomas Bart Warren analyze the ecumenism that is the banner of the agents of change. This approach to Christianity, borrowed from the denominational world demands a toothless, convictionless kind of church and disciple. It is the application of the worldly philosophy of Pluralism in the church. Scripture refutes and rejects it by telling us there is but one body or church {1 Cor. 12:20; Eph. 4:4). Ecumenism is the spirit that drives the "Community Church" plank of the change agenda.
  
  
• Dale Jenkins asks, "Does the Church Have to Change in Order to Grow?" He notes that some change is inevitable, but the faith of the church does not change, nor does its essential nature. The changes we reject are those that fall in this last category. * Russell Dyer tackles the problem of "Contemporary or Traditional Worship" He well notes "that worship is not about the preference or benefit of the worshipper; it is about honoring God." He agrees that sometimes "the church must be fine-tuned" but only "where Scripture allows it."
  
  
• Ron Williams deals with the question, Is Instrumental Music a matter of Tradition or of Scripture? He quotes Phil Sanders who rightly asks, "One must wonder how an unscriptural practice, begun centuries late by men, can be from heaven or according to the truth?"
  
  
• Neal Pollard responds to those who are determined to place women in roles of public leadership in the church. He analyzes the many New Testament passages that speak of women's place and work in the life of the church and shows that those pushing for female leaders must find their authority outside of God's Word.
  
  
• Dale Hartman discusses the leadership role of elders in the life of the church and how the qualifications set forth by Paul equip them for their task.
  
  
• Stephen Baily shows the adverse impact that a constant diet of entertainment has had on many young worshippers. "They do not know how to distinguish between what is real and what is manufactured."
  
  
• David Deffenbaugh reminds us that "The Fields Are Still White" for harvest. We must not allow ourselves to be diverted from our mission of evangelism.
  
  
• Ralph Gilmore's chapter, "Can the Bible be Understood in Our Time?” is worth the price of this book. He identifies and refutes the "new hermeneutic" being pushed by the purveyors of change and restates in a helpful way a workable approach to rightly dividing the word of truth that Christians have pursued for ages past.
  
  

This book is a helpful addition to the literature of the day. It may be ordered from Clarity Publications, Box 23384, Oklahoma City, OK 73123.

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

AS LONG AS WE HAVE THE PATTERN


When God wanted the Hebrews to build him a house of worship, he provided them specific instructions on how it should be built. He specified even the kinds of materials to be used. The exact dimensions were given for the tent, and the furnishings thereof. Nothing was left to the creative minds of the craftsmen.

The wood was to be acacia; the cloth was to be linen. The metals used were gold, silver and brass, each used in the object specified. The details were written down for the workers and are preserved to this day in the Book of Exodus chapters 35-38. God straitly instructed Moses, and he those who did the work, that they make the tent and its fixtures "after their pattern, which hath been showed thee in the mount" (Ex. 25:40). They wrought according to the pattern and God blessed and accepted their efforts. He placed his glorious shekinah in the most holy place of the tabernacle (Ex. 40:34).

Ponder the question, what if the tabernacle had been destroyed, by fire, storm or war? What would the Hebrews have done? The answer is simple, so long as they had the Book of Exodus in their possession they had the pattern and could have rebuilt it just as it was in the beginning.

Christ built his church and recorded his will for us in his New Testament (Matt. 28:20). He specifically tells us it is to be regarded as his pattern for his disciples and his church (II Tim. 1:13). Borrowing the very words God spoke to Moses, the Holy Spirit led the writer of Hebrews to say, "See that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee..." (Heb. 8:5).

By the third century men were openly ignoring the divine pattern for the church. One by one, over a period of time, virtually every doctrine and practice ordained by the Master was changed. Eventually the Bible itself was effectively removed from the reach of the common man. It was locked in a dead language (Latin) which none but clerics spoke. It was declared to be the exclusive property of the priesthood of the corrupted church of Rome. Penalties were attached for possessing a Bible. Men were forbidden to translate it into the vernacular of the people.

The great gift of the Protestant Reformation was that the power of the pope to keep the Bible from the masses of humanity was broken. In virtually every country of Europe brave men set about to put the sacred book into the language of the people. Gutenberg's printing press made it possible to produce Bibles in large numbers and at prices many people could afford. Although the church that Christ built had long be corrupted and obscured, the people now had the divine pattern in hand. By carefully studying it, they were able to rebuild that which had been lost. Using a slightly different figure, the author of The Revelation was given "a reed like unto a rod: and one said, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar and them that worship therein..." (Rev. 11:1).

The divine measuring rod was the Scripture. To be acceptable to God the church must meet the divine standard given in God's Word.

Two centuries ago, with the heavenly pattern in hand, our fathers set about to restore the church, her faith and worship, as they were in the beginning.

Today we still possess the pattern. Those who want God's acceptance and blessing will be diligent to see that all things are done according to the pattern.

One last question: How do you think God would have dealt with Bezalel and Oholiab, if the master craftsmen had taken it upon themselves to change various aspects of the tabernacle to make them more pleasing to themselves and the people?

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

SONGS, CYMBALS AND TAMBOURINES
(A Review)


This excellent book is subtitled, "The Music of Scripture." Richard Wolfe, the author, is a graduate of Harding University with a degree in Music Education. He spent 22 years as a missionary in Belgium. Rather than a polemic against instrumental music in worship, the author examines every verse in the Bible mentioning music, whether vocal or instrumental, whether secular or spiritual. I found his analysis extremely interesting and enlightening. His approach refutes some commonly held views about the use of instruments in the worship of the ancient Hebrews.

The author notes there are very few mentions of musical praise in the Pentateuch. Three are acappella, one includes tambourines and dancing with only women participating and one involved idolatrous worship. From Moses to David, the only mention of music for worship is that of Deborah's song where no instruments are mentioned. Thus the early part of the Old Testament is not overflowing with instrumental music in worship.

When David came to power, he made Jerusalem not only his capital, but also the center of the nation's religion. He moved the tabernacle to Jerusalem and organized an extensive liturgy for the tabernacle worship. Instrumental music was at that time added to the worship of the sanctuary, but it was done by God's direction, not simply by the preference or desire of David (II Chron. 29:25).

Many assume that the Psalms are "full of instrumental music." Wolfe's research shows that only 16 of the 150 psalms mention instruments of music. It is also assumed by some that by definition the Psalms were sung with instruments of music. Wolfe notes that in their synagogues Jews sang the psalms without instrumental accompaniment. Thus the common assumptions are faulty. He concludes his review of music through the time of David, by noting that, "Vocal music existed in its own right. By a five-to-one margin, it is mentioned much more often than instrumental music."

By showing that "Old Testament worship music did not have wholesale use of instruments," he neutralizes the claim that the Old Testament gives a precedent for an extensive use of instruments.

His review of the New Testament text notes, "The silence of Scripture concerning instruments in early Church worship is resounding and repetitive. Since our biblical sources never mention instruments for worship purposes, if we are paying attention, we begin to understand that they never used them. This impression is definitely confirmed by historians, who invariably agree that early Christian worship...did not include instruments" (p. 136) His conclusion is, "When Christians worship God with a cappella singing, they have absolute certainty that such music has been ordained by God for that purpose" (p. 147).

The rise of numerous voices among us insisting that the use of instruments of music in worship is an acceptable practice reveals the fact that many of our younger preachers were not properly taught God's truth on this subject. The schools that provided their education obviously failed to do an adequate job.

This book should be assigned reading for all preaching students. It would be helpful for most of the men now filling our pulpits. You may order this book from the Gospel Advocate, 1006 Elm Hill Pike, Nashville, TN 37210.

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

DISTANT VOICES (a Review)


This book by Leonard Allen is sub-headed “Discovering a Forgotten Past for a Changing Church.” Bro. Allen is surely one of the most prolific writers of the change “fellowship.” This book, published by Abilene Christian University Press was issued in 1993, one of the earliest in the program designed to revise the history of the American Restoration Movement of which we are a part. For those who love our brotherhood history this is an interesting collection of information. The purpose of the author seems to be to raise questions about the things most surely believed and practiced by members of churches of Christ. Having sown doubt and shaken convictions, convincing our members to embrace his call for change would more likely succeed.

The author views our brotherhood history as a supermarket from whose many wares he picks only those random thoughts and ideas that meet the needs of his agenda and support his program of change.

He tells us that “seeing the past in a new light, however, can bring clarifying perspective and healing balm...It can provide the impetus toward reconciling old estrangements...” (p.3). When we realize that one of the goals of the promoters of change is a reconciliation with the Disciples of Christ and Christian Churches who departed from us a century ago. The reconciling, they have in mind in for us to do. They think our fathers were wrong in refusing to fellowship those who desired instrumental music in worship and missionary societies.

The author introduces novel ideas and practices found in the early days of our Back to the Bible Movement most of which were eventually rejected by brethren as they grew in the grace and knowledge of Christ. The unspoken conclusion he wishes us to draw is, “Oh my, we have departed from the original teaching and practices of the pioneers of our movement. Therefore all that we presently hold is questionable.”

• Chapter 2 is about inter-denominational communion services which Barton Stone and his friends participated in. He does not mention that at that point they had not even launched out on their quest for original Christianity. He also relates the “Pentecostal type of emotionalism” that was common at the Cane Ridge Revival. There was swooning, shouting and jerking as untaught people were stirred to excess by the powerful, emotional charged preaching of the various denominational speakers who addressed them. Of course when those of that number set out to find the old paths of Christianity, they soon abandoned that kind of foolish behavior for a more reasonable faith based upon the Word of God.
  
  
• In chapter 3 he relates “The Only Hope for Unity.” From the pen of Barton Stone he condemns religious debating as a practice that will “deaden piety...puff up the vain mind, annihilate the taste for the marrow and fatness of the living word...” (p. 17). Change agents would never debate their cause (Prov.25:9). They much prefer to spread their message in an environment where no one can challenge them. He then relates Stone’s call for “Fire Union by which he referred to union that emerged when disciples had the Holy Spirit dwelling within them (p. 19-20). All change agents fault us for not placing enough emphasis on the Holy Spirit. Of course some of them believe the Spirit enlightens their minds and supplies them miraculous gifts. He tells us that Stone concluded “that it is better to have written creeds than unwritten opinions that carry the authority of creeds” (p. 18). With this he subtly introduces a major cant of the change folks. When we insist we have no creed but the Bible, they insist we do have a creed; an unwritten one.
  
  
• In chapter 4 he tells us of a few female preachers he found in the early days of the movement. He finds one Nancy Cram and a half dozen other ladies who were associated with Elias Smith of the New England Christian Movement. He quotes Nancy Towle (1833), “The excluding of female gifts from the Church of God...I view, as an occasion of great provocation, and as one principal means of immense loss to the Church of the Lord Jesus...” (p. 22). He does not relate that Elias Smith was an erratic person who oscillated between his attempts at restoration and Universalism. Nor does he relate that the overwhelming majority of our preachers and churches did not accept women as preachers. Of course a principle plank in the change agenda is the empowerment of Christian women and providing them a place in the public leadership of today’s church today.
  
  
• In chapter 6 he relates the uniting of the movements of Stone and A. Campbell. He stresses all the things about which they disagreed. “But they disagreed on whether one should allow formal fellowship with the unimmersed. Stone said yes. Campbell said no” (p. 41). Change agents want us to fellowship all who believe in Jesus, whether or not they are immersed. Stone said that “in apostolic times, fellowship required agreement only on a few fundamental truths...” (p. 43). If we can be persuaded to accept the few fundamentals they propose, then they will be left free to change a dozen other aspects of the faith. One of the chief fallacies of Bro. Allen and his tribe is their attempts to make Alexander Campbell and/or Barton Stone’s ideas the benchmark of our faith. They did not found the church, nor are they the head. All of that is the province of Christ. They were great and good men, struggling to escape from the ignorance and error of denominationalism that for 300 years had confused the Protestant world. Change agents love to pit Campbell against Stone and try to establish a spiritual climate of denominational diversity in which all beliefs are to be held in a state of flux. This would allow the promoters of change to stay in our midst, tolerated, while they work to gain dominance of the church.
  
  
• In chapter 7 he records Barton Stone’s words, “I see no authority in scripture, why we should draw the conclusion, that the miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit, is, according to the will of God, withdrawn from the church” (p. 46). Of course Campbell rejected that idea and in the course of a few years so did all the preachers associated with the movement. Change agents seem to conclude that all truth was reached in the first generation of the movement. No allowance is made for growth in knowledge and understanding. They overlook that those noble men were struggling to rid themselves of denominational error, one scab at a time. Some spokesmen for change like to think that the supernatural gifts are yet available to those of superior faith. He also finds that Stone believed the saints will “reign with the Lord on the earth 1000 years...” (p. 52). To find acceptance among the Evangelical churches, some change agents are sympathetic with the speculations of the premillennialists.
  
  
• Chapter 8 is devoted to Alexander Campbell’s Lunenburg Letters in which he expressed his belief that “everyone that believes in his heart that Jesus...is the Son of God; repents of his sins, and obeys him in all things according to his measure of knowledge of his will...is a Christian” (p. 55-56). He concluded that there were indeed Christians among the various sects even among those not immersed. Granting the salvation of the pious unimmeresed is a fundamental point of the change gospel. It is almost impossible for a promoter of change to write without reference to these ill-spoken letters of Campbell.
  
  
• Chapters 9, 10 & 11 are devoted to the theology of Robert Richardson, son-in-law of A. Campbell. Richardson disliked debating and doctrinal controversy. He especially disliked the influence of the English philosopher, John Locke whose “Common Sense” approach to thinking greatly influenced Campbell. He finds the following quote from Richardson to be very comforting for his program of change: “at no time have we separated ourselves, or denied fellowship to a Baptist brother, or refused to receive as a member any one accredited by a letter from a Baptist church. We have, in reality, ever claimed the Baptists as our brethren” (p. 75). This they want for us. He delights in Richardson’s Communings in the Sanctuary and his exploration of mysteries of the religion of Christ. The postmodern mind relishes and craves the mysterious in religion (p. 80-82). This is most evident in the various New Age cults, whose terminology and ideas keep surfacing in the literature of the promoters of change.
  
  
• Chapters 12-14 are devoted to peculiar views of David Lipscomb such as his belief that Christians should not be involved in civil government and that they should not participate in carnal war. Few if any among us today (including Allen) hold these views. Of course he does not dwell on the fact that Lipscomb’s entire career was devoted to opposing a change movement in his day that is virtually identical to that of which Allen is a part. One wonders if his reason for featuring Lipscomb is to seek some respectability for his cause.
  
  
• Chapter 15 is devoted to Benjamin Franklin, the preacher and editor of the American Christian Review. He objected to the costly and ornate buildings of some of the city churches of the mid-nineteenth century. The opening quote from Franklin is an indictment of the movement Allen would promote. “A mighty torrent of worldliness is now perverting and corrupting the pure and holy worship prescribed and authorized by our Lord Jesus Christ...This worldly carnal display will send grief home to many hearts of the old saints. Many thousands now living will grieve” (p. 108).
  
  
• In chapter 16 he finds an encouraging word for the historians of the change movement who argue that even in their darkest days of apostasy, the Roman Catholic Church and her Protestant daughters were still God’s church. Hinsdale wrote, “Despite the ‘fearful apostasies’ across the centuries, the great body of the Historic church has preserved the central facts, commands and promises of the Gospel” (p. 122).
  
  
• Chapters 17 is devoted to 19th century women who were demanding right to preach the gospel. He finds one example within the fellowship of our brethren and alludes to others without explaining that they were principally among the digressive Disciples of Christ and Christian Churches. His description of Silena Moore Holman’s campaign is revealing. “She boldly challenged some of the traditional assumptions...”(p. 127). She developed “her views with considerable skill and verve...she affirmed here commitment to biblical authority.” His description of David Lipscomb’s response is predictable. “Lipscomb’s responses were usually sharp, sometimes patronizing, and occasionally marked by exasperation. Her responses to him...were firm, carefully reasoned, and respectful” (p. 129). Me thinks had Allen been there at the time he would gladly have ordained her to the ministerial office.
  
  
• Chapter 19 is devoted to the saintly James A. Harding. While the apparent focus is on his child-like trust in Divine Providence, the author wants us to know that good brother believed there would be a “millennial reign” of Christ on earth (p. 150). Those familiar with our history know that many of our early leaders had murky ideas about millennialism. But it was not an issue to be dealt with in their day. When it became such, good men went to the Bible to see just what its message was about the reign of Christ. All but a tiny handful concluded it was a spiritual reign of the Christian age and that his kingdom was his church. They rightly rejected premillennialism. But our change agents think they were wrong in so doing.
  
  
• Chapter 20 is devoted to T. B. Larimore who declared, “I propose never to stand identified with one special wing, branch, or party of the church...” (p. 153) Bro. Larimore is treated like the patron saint of the change movement. In a meeting lasting 22 weeks, “Larimore never mentioned the divisive organ issue.” “Larimore simply never addressed the doctrinal issues dividing the movement.” “Never... had he furnished any evidence that he was either for or against the organ or the missionary society” (p. 157). This is a major objective of their agenda. They want to convince our brethren to follow Larimore’s example so they can proceed in their plans to change the faith, worship and practice of the church without hindrance. In his defense, it is noteworthy that Bro. Larimore did take his stand with those who rejected the instrument and the societies. Although not a warrior, he was not without conviction.
  
  
• Chapter 21 is devoted to Bro. K. C. Moser who first articulated the idea of “We need the man (Jesus) not the plan.” This was adopted and used as one of the opening shots of the proto-change agents back in the 1960s. He paints Bro. Moser as a martyr who suffered great abuse at the hands of heartless traditionalists. As all change agents tend to do, he introduces Bro. G. C. Brewer and assures his readers that “Brewer...stand(s) directly behind some of the theological shifts occurring among contemporary Churches of Christ.” (p. 169). Such name-dropping is trading on the credentials of biblical scholarship and reputation for soundness of Bro. Brewer. His published works, especially his “As Touching those Who Were Once Enlightened and His Medley on the Music Question forever demolishes any claim our current change agents might make on is good name.
  
  

The author of this book is a man with an agenda. The contents reveal the scraps of information he has gathered and cobbled together in support of his ideas and his plans for the church.

___________________________________
John Waddey, Editor
Christianity: Then and Now
E-Mail: johnwaddey@aol.com

Gentleman, we can write reams of "scholarship," but it still comes down to the "PROMISE" from the throneroom of the King, voiced by His "Ambassador" at Pentecost.
"Whose soever sins you remit, they ARE remitted unto them; and whosever sins you retain they ARE retained" [John 20:21-23]. Twenty-first century man is not going to change this PROMISE.

Saul"s sins were not "remitted" by Jesus on the road to Damascus. His sins were "remitted" by a preacher, instructed in Apostolic doctrine by the name of Ananias: "And now why tarriest? arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord."
It takes professional help to miss that....and we find many in the church of Christ today who seem to have forgotten basic apostolic teaching.

Either the King's promise is true, or we need nor "seek first, the Kingdom of God." What we believe about being "lost" has to do with what we believe about being "saved." When you baptize a sinner into water for the "remission" of sins, he either comes out of that h-2/0 a save man or a wet one. True, the water does not "save," as the denominationalis believes that we teach, but his "sins have been remitted" in the MIND of God....and brother's, that is the only place it counts.... I really do not care what you think about me. But, we had better be awfully careful what we say about a "baptized believer," for Jesus said "to love one another as I have loved you."
That was not a suggestion, but a command!
The grace of God, is being "IN" His Son, Jesus!
See you around His table?
Jack Man

Jesus warned that Doctors of the Law "take away the KEY to knowledge." That is what they are trained to do, ordained to do and perhaps even predestinated "from old" to do. It is not remotely possible that they could be that ignorant of TRUE HISTORY. John Waddey notes:

John Waddey He tells us that "seeing the past in a NEW LIGHT, however, can bring clarifying perspective and healing balm...It can provide the impetus toward reconciling old estrangements..." (p.3). When we realize that one of the goals of the promoters of change is a reconciliation with the Disciples of Christ and Christian Churches who departed from us a century ago. The reconciling, they have in mind in for us to do. They think our fathers were wrong in refusing to fellowship those who desired instrumental music in worship and missionary societies.

Knowing the meaning of Scribes, Pharisees and Hypocrites (actors, singers) I should see this as a MARK. However, I am still a bit amazed at seeing how much old PUKE can be licked up and recycled over and over as it bounces around the daisy chain of SELF PROMOTERS.

His friends SEE VISIONS and HEAR AUDIBLE VOICES. The NEW LIGHT is the same old NEW LIGHT which was PENTECOSTAL and never remotely related to the sober, sane church of Christ.

These people are AGENTS working for the Stone Campbell movement which is about the decades old and probably built upon the foundation of Cane Ridge and Witchcraft.

The Reformers led by many people but popularized by the Campbells was NOT at Cane Ridge and never participated in the charismatic practices which Stone came to reject. They are described by ancient and fairly recent Christians in Devil Worship.

The Cane Ridge system was built on more Anglican roots which gave rise to the Pilgrim Holiness or Weslying growth in that part of Kentucky--BOURBON COUNTY.

It is a fact that by following the Thomas Campbell definiton of church as "a school of Christ" and worship as "reading and musing" on the Scripture some of the people agreed to "unite" in the assembly in SOME select churches. Most of the Reformers thought of them as fanatics because Stone held little in common except "back to the Bible." He and they adopted the Shouting Methodists practice as an Act of Worship. They immediately debated over which SECT had defeated the others.

Leroy Garrett: "The caneridge revival took place in the summer of 1801, attracting 25,000 people. For five days and nights as many as seven preachers, representing several denominations, would address the multitudes at the same time at different parts of the camp, without confusion.

Multitudes turned to the Lord. Stone described sinners

responding to the gospel with various exercises known as the jerks, falling, dancing and laughing, and even barking.

One infidel, a friend of Stone, approached him amidst such demonstration and reproached him for deceiving the people with such antics. Stone responded with a few gentle words, pitying the man for his implacability. At which point the man fell immediately as if dead, and rose no more until he had confessed the Lord.

I think that might be a THREAT for those who know that Garrett rarely gets it right.

Yes, don't the myths just grow and grow and grow. Stone later repudiated the exercises: did Stone fall down as if dead? Stone claimed that the STONEITE wing did not come from God:

"They (disorders) cannot come from God, for he is not the author of confusion. The apology made in Corinth for the disorders, which Paul condemned, was precisely the same as that urged in defense of these bodily agitations. We ought not to resist the spirit of God, said the Corinthians; and so said all those who encouraged these convulsions. Paul's answer is that no influence comes from God which destroys our self-control. 'The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.'

"The prophets of God were not like the raving Pythoness of heathen temples, nor are the saints of God converted into whirling dervishes by an influence which is the author. There can be little doubt that Paul would have severely reprobated such scenes as frequently occurred during the revival of which we are speaking. "He would have said to the people substantially what he said to the Corinthians. If any unbeliever or ignorant man come to your assemblies and hears one shouting in ecstasy, and another howling in anguish; if he sees some falling, some jumping, some lying in convulsions, others in trances, will he not say ye are mad?" (Hodge, History Presbyterian Church quoted in Barton W. Stones' Biography, p. 368, 369)

"A high form of mystical ecstasy flourished mainly at two periods, in the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, in both cases near the close of great intellectual and spiritual awakenings.


In cruder forms it has had a continuous history among the lower and less cultured strata of the population. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Dancers of Chorizates created much excitement in Germany. These wild enthusiasts numbering thousands of the poor and ignorant of both sexes, danced madly in thee churches and streets for hours at a time, frequently until they fell exhausted.

They saw fantastic visions, leaped high in the air to get out of the flood of blood in which they imagined themselves to be wading, and indulged in many other marvelous exercises, wholly oblivious of the throngs of amazed spectators. Gifts were showered upon them, attracting many rascally imitators and thus offering a breeding ground for shocking immoralities." (Clark, Elmer T., The Small Sects in America, p. 87, Abingdon)

History has examples and they were called witchcraft. The devil or fire worshippers in Iraq did about what happened at Caneridge:

"To some extent they were contrived, both by those who exhorted and by those who listened and responded. Certain techniques, which ministers conscientiously learned, helped push audiences toward an ecstatic frenzy. Certain hymns, certain tunes worked better than others. Certain repeated and familiar verbal images, those with great resonance for an audience, worked better than others. In many of the greatest revivals the spark was a type of confession--the telling of what had happened to oneself there or at an earlier revival.

Some ministers learned the most evocative ways of telling their stories. Several sermonic devices--timing, phrasing, pauses, and above all the display of intense feeling--worked." (Conkin, Paul, Cane Ridge America's Pentecost, p. 106, U of Wis.)


Leroy Garrett: "We give this background so as to point out that it was out of such a Holy Spirit revival that the Restoration Movement in Kentucky was launched. It may appear odd to us now, a people known for our negative reaction to such experiences in the Spirit, that the cane ridge congregation,

which may well be viewed as the first Church of Christ in America, began amidst a Holy Spirit revolution with such attending phenomena as jerks, shouts and faintings. It was in the heart of this revival that Stone stood in the caneridge pulpit and urged Mark 16:16 upon the hearers."

Well, we KNOW that is a big fat whopper, don't we. Baptism was NOT believed or practiced at that time among the STONEITES or any of their component parts. It was only when people REFUSED to be comforted or assured by witchcraft that a few men went OVER STONE'S HEAD and taught baptism.

The Stone-Campbell Movement is a SLICK WILLIE way to imply that there is UNITY among non-instrumental churches of Christ and the MUSICAL--SECTARIANS of the Stoneite movement.

The only DUPES they have already BELONG to the MUSICAL GROUP and have infiltrated and diverted peaceable churches of Christ.

These PhDuhs CANNOT quote history or the Bible STRAIGHT because God has sent them STRONG DELUDERS. You must think of them as HUCKSTERS or TRAFFICKERS who POLLUTE the Word which means SELL AT RETAIL. Don't buy. They know that FOOLS who love to be FOOLED will not check out the resources and see that they CANNOT quote without bending the truth to fit their scam. That is THE meaning of being post-modern, post-biblical.

I am sure that God has sent BUFFOONS and JESTERS which is the meaning of God pouring out His WRATHE (orge) on people who deliberately pervert the Scriptures as Apostates and Profits.

Ken, the God of the Bible I know, does not have to send "Buffoons and Jesters," which you say "is the meaning of God's wrath (orge) on people who deliberately pervert the scriptures as apostates and Prophets."

Paul speaks of the "natural man" in his letter to the church at Corinth which is appropiate for the church today. The "natural man" in the church did not "receive the things of the Holy Spirit" as did the Apostles.
Paul would say, "But WE (apostles) have the mind of Christ."

God inspired His messangers to reveal and record His will: once delivered, the understanding, preservation, and transmission of the message rested upon the devotion and fidelity of those who chose to do His will. Read Matthew 25:13 about ability and responsibility.

When men failed of accurate preservation, or intelligent interpretation, or of faithful proclamation to all men, God did not intervene by a miracle; else every time a translation of the Scripture was made to another language, every time a sermon was preached, immediate miraculous guidance would have been necessary. God delivered devine truth to man; the responsibility is man's for the fulfillment of its purpose.

Hear again the words of Jesus in His parable of the talents: "For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his servants, and delivered unto them his goods. Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one: to EVERY man according to his ABILITY."

Each of us will be held accountable of our "ability" on what we teach about the "kingdom of heaven" with the "goods delivered." The "Buffoon" is not the "natural man" of 1 Corinthians 2:14. Paul's "natural man" was IN the church. My faith does not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God: the "anointing power" of 1 John 2:27.
Jack Mann