 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 if 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 ones faith if swallowed. It 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.
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
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.
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.
1. 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).
2. They identify with his rejection of the New Testament as a pattern for our emulation. Note these quotes which they offer without contradiction. - "For Luther, the divine Word was spoken supremely in the person of Jesus Christ, not in a mere book" (p. 116).
- "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).
- "When Luther proclaimed ‘scripture alone' he always was proclaiming ‘Christ alone'" (p. 116). How does he know this contradictory assertion to be true?
- "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.
- "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.
- 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.
- "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: - "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.
- "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 patters 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.
- "Luther saw serious dangers in the imitation of biblical models" (p. 119). So do change agents!
* "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. - "Luther viewed the effort to restore the patterns and traditions of primitive Christianity s fundamentally at odds with the gospel" (p. 119), and so do our change agents.
- " Such Restorationism, Luther believed, placed human effort above God's grace and was therefore the worst sort of idolatry" (p. 120).
- 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 agent's 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. JHW |
