A CHURCH THAT FLIES (A Review)

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.