| JOHN WADDEY, EDITOR
Published by the Church of Christ, 12213 West Bell Road, Surprise, AZ 85374 Volume 2, Number 12
CURRENT ISSUE: August, 2003 |
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Table of Contents:
A PLEA TO ADMINISTRATORS AND TRUSTEES OF OUR CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
Churches of Christ across America are experiencing conflict and turmoil because of a flood of unscriptural changes that are being promoted to the point of division. The well-spring of this "progressive" change teaching can be traced to several of our Christian Universities. Faculty members are issuing a stream of books promoting change and students are being filled with their new ideas about the faith and worship of the church. Students then come home and sow the seeds of change in their home congregations. Young preachers are being educated and sent forth who do not understand or appreciate the concept of restoring the original faith and practice of the church. This article is an appeal to those responsible for the direction of those schools associated with us.
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As a matter of integrity, consider and respect the intents and purposes of your founders. Not a single one of our schools was started by brethren who believed that one could be saved before his baptism. Not one of them believed that instrumental music was acceptable in Christian worship. Not one of them believed that women could fill leadership roles in the church. None of them thought the church of Christ was a denomination. They sacrificed to establish and build up your school in order to advance the cause of Christ, to provide an educational setting so that young Christians could be trained in an environment that would sustain and strengthen their faith, not undermine it. -
Love, honor and respect the church which you exist to serve. Your school was not founded nor financed to promote denominational teachings and practices. It was never intended to take upon itself to impose changes to the faith and practice of the Lord's church. -
Do not allow teachers to fill posts in your school who are not faithful members of the church of Christ. In days past, virtually all of our schools had that proviso in employment requirements. -
Do not keep on your payroll those who have departed from the faith of Christ as revealed in the New Testament. A man who prefers Baptist doctrine should be teaching in a Baptist school. -
Feel a deep sense of personal responsibility to the parents who have entrusted their children to you for their education, trusting that you would help make them stronger Christians, and useful members of the church of Christ. -
Respect all of those saints who have given their hard-earned money to keep your school afloat in days past. They bequeathed to you their estates, firmly believing the faith they held would be perpetuated to future generations by your teachers. -
If you no longer believe in or respect those basic fundamentals of New Testament Christianity, held and preached by past generations of the churches of Christ, then do the honorable thing and resign your post and allow others, who still believe, to carry on.
Weigh your decisions carefully against the Christian virtues of fidelity, honor, justice, respect and loyalty (Phil. 4:8). Our schools have been entrusted to you for a few short years. When you have finished your term of office they should be better than when you started, certainly not worse. They should in every case be a blessing to Christ's church and never a hindrance.
"It does not require great learning to be a Christian and to be convinced of the truth of the Bible. It requires only an honest heart and a willingness to obey God"
(Wm. Barnes). "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life"
(Jesus).
OUR POST WAR STRATEGY
As America contemplated war with Iraq, President Bush and his advisors were developing a post war strategy to help rebuild that nation and hopefully instill a love for freedom and democracy in the hearts of the Iraqi people. As we in the church do battle with the forces of the change movement, we too must be thinking of a meaningful post-war strategy.
It will not be enough just to win. If God is with us and we block the advance of this destructive movement; if the agents of change flee to the denominations which they so admire, what will our condition then be? Our mission must be bigger and broader than just defeating the enemy among us. There is a positive and constructive side of Christianity that must be pursued. Preachers or people who have no greater goal than doing battle with their own errant brethren have failed to understand our reason for existing.
We must not be content to save the status quo of the last 40 years. The church is in dire need of renewal by the restoration of Scriptural emphasis on all things related to her life and work, her faith and worship. -
For 30 years our growth has been stagnant. We must renew our commitment to aggressive evangelism. The Great Commission is still our primary mission (Matt. 28:19). -
A lost world still languishes for the simple gospel. We must send forth a new wave of missionaries Even as Americans grow cold and indifferent to the gospel, millions in other nations are begging for the bread of life. -
American families, including many within the church, are being ravaged and shattered by the corrupting influences of our modern culture. We must provide teaching and training to prepare young adults for lasting marriage and to strengthen those already wed. -
Our children are being corrupted by a decadent culture. Schools have been captured by humanists and are being used to undermine their faith in God and his Word. Corrupting music, television and movies are blurring their sense of moral judgment. We must renew our approach to educating them, rooting and grounding them in the faith of the gospel (Prov. 22:6). -
Our members, generally, are deficient in Biblical knowledge. This has left thousands of them vulnerable to false teaching such as that of the change movement. We must do a better job of educating and indoctrinating them in the fundamentals of the faith. -
The change agents have captured and spoiled some of our major schools that heretofore have provided advanced education for our young people and training for young preachers. Those lost to their clutches should be abandoned and the surviving, faithful schools must be supported and encouraged to greater service. -
Many preachers have lost their faith in the authority of God's Word and the need to restore the original facets of the faith and practice of the church. Such are no longer of useful service to the church. They must be rejected and in their place a new generation of faithful men must be encouraged to take up the work of preaching and be trained for true and loyal service. -
We must rebuild a sense of brotherhood. Those who are older can remember the sense of love, loyalty, concern and cooperation that existing among our brethren prior to the 1960s. Somewhere, somehow, that sense of brotherhood has been allowed to wither and atrophy. We must reverse this destructive trend. This sense of congregational isolation has contributed to the success of the change agents who have been able to prey on a given congregation while others ignored the danger of their brethren.
This conflict will be years in resolving. With God's help we will defeat those who have turned against the church they once loved and served. The big question is, "Are we committed to a workable post-war strategy?" Without such a strategy, the victors will eventually wither away.
A BOOK YOU SHOULD READ
Shortly before his death, Bro. James D. Bales reviewed Jim Woodroof's book, "The Church in Transition". Bales called his book "The Church in Transition to What?" Bro. Bales was a long-time professor at Harding University and the author of some 85 books and hundreds of articles. With the skill of a surgeon he analyzes and refutes Woodroof's criticisms of the Lord's Church and exposes the errors of the changes he proposes. Several of Woodroof's pillars Bales utterly demolishes: 1). That the Gospels are of greater value and importance than the rest of the New Testament; 2). That unity is more important than doctrinal correctness; 3). That our brethren have not known, preached or appreciated the grace of God. Several valuable quotes are found in this little book: -
Of the change agents of last century, G. C. Brewer observed, "Instrumental music was, in the beginning of the controversy, a symptom, and not itself the disease...They had lost their passion for restoration..." -
J. W. McGarvey said, "don't ever let anybody persuade you that you can successfully combat error by fellowshiping it and going along with it." -
Ruel Lemmons said, "Unity is fine, but unity at the expense of truth is despicable."
This book is a valuable weapon for our battle against the
agents of change. Every preacher and elder should read it. Order from the
Gospel Advocate, P. O. Box 150, Nashville, TN 37202.
THE CRUCIFORM CHURCH
C. Leonard Allen issued this book in 1990. It is one of the earlier books promoting the change agenda. At that time Bro. Allen, was 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. Bro. Allen is a chief theoretician and architect of the change movement that is ravaging our churches. This is a handbook for seducing unwitting Christians and churches away from their biblical roots and into the change agents' camp. Agents of change hide behind a mask of pretended piety and concern for the church while, chipping away at her foundations to effect her collapse. Allen gives lip service to his "debt to Churches of Christ." He concludes that his faith, learned in the Church of Christ, needs "careful alterations" (p. x). In this book he attempts to
engraft those alterations to faith upon his readers. The word "cruciform" means "a cross-shaped church." It is a picturesque term borrowed from denominationalism; likely intended to disarm readers who would think it was a positive, constructive attempt to bring the church closer to Christ. -
Allen critiques the way we read Scriptures; the way we view God; the place we give to the cross; 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 a 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 make the same criticisms and propose the same changes! -
Change agents, like to identify with illustrious teachers of the past for validation. Allen, claims Bro. G. C. Brewer as his hero. For the unknowing, the honored name of Brewer may give him credence, but those familiar with Brewer's life and work know he would not have given Allen the time of day. Brewer's books, "As Touching Those Who Were Once Enlightened" and "A Medley on the Music Question" belie their claims. He chastened those who left the church for denominationalism and those who vainly tried to justify instrumental music in worship. -
Bro. A. tells us that we face an identity crisis" (p 3). But it is not those of the "traditional" churches who suffer identity crisis. It is the change agents and their converts who, abandoning the guiding principles of New Testament Christianity, are blindly searching for meaning and direction in the realm of denominationalism and subjectivism. -
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 and 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 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. -
The author 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). 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 are a dim shadow beside Hardeman! -
He says, we must "face the challenge of rethinking our traditional way of reading the Bible" (p. 19). He charges that, "Our traditional approach violated the historical and literary character of the Bible" (p. 32). This book is a promotional piece for the "New Hermeneutics." -
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. -
Bro. Allen implies that all but his group of preachers and churches have "lost the word of the cross" (p. 113). -
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. -
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 non-sectarian claims a centerpiece of one own sect, to make rejection of all human tradition a fixture of one's own robust tradition..." (p. 24). -
Much of this book is filled with "theo-babble" i.e., heavy, obtuse, paragraphs fill with the cloudy language of the denominational theological seminary.. -
Allen and other change agents are determined to make the thought of Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone the basis of our faith! It may the basis of theirs but we will rest our faith on the foundation of the New Covenant of Christ. -
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. -
Allen and other change agents are "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (II Tim. 3:7).
The good news is that Dr. Allen is now a visiting professor at Biola University in California, a Baptist school. There his theology fits his benefactors. This a blessing for the church and young Christians who would be under his blighting influence were he teaching in one of our schools. Until he finds his way back to the simple faith and practice of New Testament Christianity, we should pray that he will stay there.
A FELT NEEDS MINISTRY
Many of our contemporary ministers, fresh out of "ministry" programs in Graduate Schools, are looking for ways to meet the "felt needs of the people of their community and congregation." This is one of the aspects of the change movement. Bible-based preaching is downplayed and doctrine is considered unfruitful, but needs-based programs are the rage of the day.
Our local denominational neighbors are miles ahead of the "felt needs programs" of our brethren. For example the Unity Church of Sun City, AZ will offer an overnight trip to Avi Resort and & Casino in Laughlin, NV. The $25 charge covers your bingo fee. Some folks have a felt need to gamble.
The Radiant Church of Surprise provided a Sunday evening festival and concert for the youth of their congregation. It was "Christian Rock" at its best and no doubt met the felt needs of the kids who have been nurtured on Rock music. The only problem was, neighbors for blocks around called to complain about the disturbing noise ricocheting thought the night and into their homes. Natalie Hearn, Director of Marketing for the Radiant Church wrote a letter of apology to the community and submitted it to our local paper. This is a new area of ministry that most of us have overlooked.
The local Disciples of Christ church recently featured Desert City 4, a Dixieland jazz band, for a Sunday evening program. It met the needs of those who crave Dixieland Jazz.
Besides these classic examples each week we read of services featuring interpretative dancing, travel logs, classical performances, and a large assortment of other entertainment services.
I mention these bizarre examples because they illustrate where the change trail leads. A hundred and twenty-five years ago, the Disciples of Christ took the exit off the straitened and narrow way and went down the broad road they called progressivism. First it was a Missionary Society, then a piano, then fellowship with denominational churches, women preachers, theological liberalism and still they continue to press onward....further and further away from Christ and his Word. Denominational bodies such as the Unity and Radiant churches do not honor and respect the written Word of Christ as the final and absolute standard of authority in his religion. They illustrate the extremes to which that failure will lead. It is not unreasonable to predict that in a few years, at the current rate of drift, some groups formerly associated with Churches of Christ will be in the same league with them. A wise traveler will avoid exits that lead them away from the map their Master and forerunner has prepared for them. Felt needs won't carry much weight when we stand before the Master and are judged by the words that he spoke (John 12:48).
BOUND COPIES OF CTN ARE AVAILABLE
This issue completes our second year of publication. Bound copies of volumes I & II are available for $6:50 each, post-paid. |
