The Kingdom, The Kids, & the Cowboys

In Leroy Garrett’s “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?”  the author makes twenty suggestions for our faith heritage if we are to remain a viable voice for the Kingdom in our increasingly post-modern, post-denominational, post-Christian world. The numbers don’t lie. We’re losing our people left and right. And some things need to change. As Churches of Christ, some things we have refused to change over the years are now coming to roost. It can no longer be ignored.

Garrett’s eleventh suggestion is that we shed ourselves of the tremendous and unnecessary burden of trying to become an exact replica of the Church of the New Testament. Not only does Garrett say it could never be accomplished; it should never be tried.

Recognize that we can’t be a first century church.

Garrett writes that a lot of our people have for decades understood the Churches of Christ to be a complete restoration of the New Testament Church in name, in belief and practice, in leadership structure and worship. Frankly, while being raised in and by the Church of Christ I, too, was taught this very idea.

It is a fiction grounded on false assumptions, such as the church of the apostles having a particular name, which it did not, and that it had a uniform organization and clearly-defined “acts” of worship, which it did not.

There is no ground for supposing that God ever intended for his Church in each succeeding century over the past 2,000 years to be a first century church, even if it were possible, which it isn’t. The evidence rather suggests that God calls us to do for our generation what the primitive church did for its generation. Nothing in Scripture indicates that the earliest congregations were intended to be models for all time to come or even in their own time for that matter. The facts of history, culture, and civilization demand that the Church of Christ of the second century would be a second century church and that the church of the sixteenth century would be a sixteenth century church. Each generation of Christians is to serve its own time, drawing upon both Holy Scripture and the experience of the Church (tradition) for its direction.

A lot of this, of course, is predicated upon the ways we view and interpret the Bible. Those who see the Scriptures as a rule book and a list of guidelines and commands to follow in order to be “right” with God will seek those patterns and regulations and strive to be “right.” Those who understand the Scriptures to be the Spirit-inspired accounts of real people being impacted by a real God and the very real ways it’s all worked out in real life will look for something else. In considering church beliefs and practices, structure and worship, those brothers and sisters look for whether those things are in tune with God’s Spirit, whether they genuinely reflect the Gospel, and whether they bring glory to God.

Instead of searching the Bible and asking the question, “Is this what the first church did?” we should be asking, “Is this consistent with the person of Jesus?” The “pattern” for the Church — and this “pattern” will never change — is the person of Christ Jesus, our risen Lord. It’s his image we see in the mirror. It’s his likeness into which we are being transformed by God’s Holy Spirit. It’s his death, burial, and resurrection that should be modeled and proclaimed and upheld in every one of our beliefs and practices. The Good News should be the lens through which we view our church beliefs and practices. Jesus’ sacrificial service should be the spirit with which we enter every elders meeting and committee hearing. Our faith is in a person, not a policy; the Church is built on a relationship, not regulations.

No one congregation in the New Testament therefore can be viewed as our pattern, nor all of them together, but out of their experiences, their strengths and weaknesses, we learn how to be his Church.

Peace,

Allan

The Mavericks played the absolutely best game they possibly could have Saturday night and still lost to the Thunder in OKC. Durant and his boys are going to take it in five games. Last night Derek Holland looked overmatched, Josh Hamilton pulled something in his back, Ron Washington got tossed out of the game on his 60th birthday, and the Rangers lost their first series since last fall. And the Cowboys used their top draft pick on a guy who just set the record for the lowest score on the Wonderlic intelligence exam in NFL draft history. Tough weekend.

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Let’s resume our chapter-by-chapter look at Leroy Garrett’s “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” The book is a compilation of suggestions Garrett makes for us if the Church of Christ is to have a redemptive role and an effective ministry in our rapidly changing world. We reach the halfway point of the book today with suggestion number ten:

Have an assurance of our own salvation.

Garrett claims that our members “do not know we are saved; we hope we are.” I know what he’s talking about. I hear it all the time. My own brothers and sisters in Christ talk about their eternal salvation in hesitant, halting, uncertain terms. “I hope I am.” “I pray that I am.” “If God will just give me a tiny back corner in the basement of heaven, I’ll be happy.” “I’m trying as hard as I can.”

The by-product of such uncertainty is a lack of joy. One thing Church of Christ people aren’t, in spite of many noble qualities, is a joyous people. We have little joy because we have little assurance. We don’t talk like people who are assured of their salvation. We don’t sing that way. We don’t pray that way. That is why our singing is unexciting, our prayers dull, and our services generally boring. Take a look at our Sunday morning service at most any of our churches. Is it a funeral? Where is the spontaneity? Where is the joyous excitement of being a Christian? Who would seek solace from a troubled world among folk who go at their religion with a yawn and a sigh?

Garrett says Church of Christ people are scared to live and afraid to die. We have no joy because we’re not really one hundred percent sure we’re good with God. Despite the clear teachings of Holy Scripture, our people have doubts and fears about their standing with God. They’re uncertain. They wonder if they’re doing enough. They wonder if they’re good enough. They wonder if they’ve loved enough or served enough or worked enough. (By the way, the answer to those questions is “No, no, no, no, and no.”)

Garrett’s dead-on analysis is that we really don’t believe in the grace of God. We would never say it, but the reality is that, for the most part, Church of Christ folks actually believe in salvation by works. We’re taught this at an early age. We think and talk this way. We practice this way. It’s been unambiguously modeled for us and by us for decades. Seriously.

We are saved by being baptized in exactly the correct way for exactly the right reasons. We stay saved by taking communion on exactly the correct day — and only on that correct day — in exactly the correct way. We keep ourselves saved and we save others by studying our Bibles and reaching the exact same correct conclusions about all the exact same doctrines. This is what makes us unique. This is what makes us distinctive. This is what sets us apart from all the others. We’ve got it down right. And since we know so much about God’s plan and God’s will, we’d better be about doing it exactly right.

No wonder we’re so uncertain and nervous! Who could possibly measure up to all that? If I’ve misunderstood a part of that doctrine or I’ve misinterpreted part of God’s will or I’ve done something in a worship service that’s not entirely in the proper order, then my salvation must be in jeopardy. I’d better figure things out and get right with God.

We must start believing in the Gospel of the grace of God, the basis of which is that salvation is his free gift to us. There is no work that we can perform to attain it. There is no way for us to buy it. We can’t be good enough to deserve it. There is no power that can wrest it. It is a gift, a free gift, that is ours only because of God’s philanthropy. In short, we must come to see what has been in holy Scripture all along: “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

“[God] has saved us and called us to a holy life — not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.” ~2 Timothy 1:9

“I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.” ~2 Timothy 1:12

“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” ~Titus 3:5

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy!” ~Jude 24

Look, I don’t believe in “once saved, always saved;” but I sure don’t believe either in “once saved, barely saved.” We are saved by God’s grace. We are redeemed by his mercy. It’s a free gift from our Father. And if we can ever all get our brains and our hearts and our souls around that, we’ll be freed from our own hangups to live and praise and worship and serve with great gladness and joy. Finally, we’ll be able to forgive people we haven’t been able to forgive before because we’ll be drawing on God’s goodness instead of our own. Finally, we’ll be able to accept those we’ve never been able to accept before because we’ll be depending on Jesus’ righteousness and not our own. We’ll be able to love every man, woman, and child on this planet in ways we’ve never been able to love before because we’ll be experiencing God’s unconditional love in our lives and not applying our own very conditional love to others.

It’ll be a huge shift for us. Huge. Radical. Dramatic. It’ll change us. It’ll mature us and grow us up. And it will have an eternal impact on those around us who just might see Christ in the Church of Christ for the very first time.

Peace,

Allan

Darling,

I love you.

I love the caring and compassionate, sensitive and sympathetic mother that you are to our children. I love the over-the-top ways you tackle their projects and obsess over the details with them, from Whitney’s senior table to Valerie’s class presentations and Carley’s clothes. I love the ways you gently correct them. I love the ways you teach them. I love that you sing with them and rock out with them in the van. I love that you love to watch Little House on the Prarie with them. Every day.

I love the way you carefully and faithfully provide for all of us and take care of us. I love that you sweep the floors four times a day. I love that you never cook two foods of the same color for the same meal. I love that you keep up with all the details; I even love that you know exactly how much I spent at Whataburger before I can even get back to the office. I love that you use so much bleach. On everything.

I love your beautiful eyes that almost shut completely when you laugh. I love your laugh, which I’ve heard much more in the past eight months than I’ve heard in a long, long time. I love your inside-out socks and your blue jeans and your gray Marble Falls basketball sweat shirt. I love your huge sunglasses. And your hair. I love your hair.

I love that you love our Lord. I love that I’m a better disciple of Jesus, a better person, a better man because of your faith and commitment to our God. I love that you have taught me how to worship him. I love that you have shown me how to trust him. I love listening to you pray. I love that you have pushed me and encouraged me and joined me in ministering to our God’s people in his Church. I love that you’re my partner. In a billion wonderful ways, you are my partner. And I love that.

I love you, Carrie-Anne.

Happy Birthday, babe.

Allan

Leroy Garrett’s book, “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” suggests twenty changes that congregations in our faith heritage must make if we are to remain a viable voice for Christianity in the future. In our increasingly post-denominational, post-Christian world, we’ve got to change some things, Garrett says, or we’re going to fade quickly into complete irrelevancy. Hard numbers and statistics would back up that bold claim. So we’re considering his book, chapter by chapter, and reflecting together on our future as a faithful branch of the Kingdom of God.

In Chapter Nine, Garrett addresses the sensitive issue of the woman’s role in our congregations:

Cease being male-dominated.

If the Church of Christ is to have an effective witness going into the [future], it must make some changes in reference to the place of women in the church. These changes need not be what most of its members would consider radical changes, such as having women as elders or pulpit ministers, but they must be substantial enough to reflect a change in attitude and practice. If there is a concise way to say it, it would be the Church of Christ must cease being male-dominated. Corporate worship is male-dominated, teaching is male-dominated, decision-making is male-dominated. The overall attitude is male-dominated.

It is not evident that we really believe, “In Christ there is neither male nor female,” as Galatians 3:28 urges upon us. If that truth means anything, it means that in the Body of Christ gender is not to be an issue. The Church of Christ must take steps to demonstrate that it really believes that oneness in Christ transcends gender. It means that when a member functions as part of the Body, it will not matter what sex that member is, just as it will not matter what race the member is.

Garrett goes on to suggest several things he says can be done immediately — he calls these “small steps.” He also claims that all of us can do these things at once because they “do not violate any Scripture, and they call only for an end to some of our traditions that have no validity.”

Hmmm……

That’s a huge oversimplification. Huge. However, in Garrett’s defense, he’s not interested in breaking down every single biblical passage on the matter. And, neither am I. Not today and not in this space. For the best exegesis and application of all those important passages, I’d suggest Jay Guin’s studies here.

To continue, Garrett calls for our congregations to equip and empower our women to make the announcements during our worship assemblies and to share in formally welcoming the visitors. Allow the ladies to participate in calling the church to worship. Allow the women to read the Scriptures and pray to our God out loud in our assemblies. Let our sisters serve the communion meal on Sunday mornings. Allow the younger girls to serve as greeters and pass out and collect attendance cards. Enable the women to teach. Allow them to share in the decision-making by serving and chairing church committees. And appoint women as deacons as is the example in Scripture.

Complicated. This is complicated. Not because the Bible is complicated or unclear on these matters, but because we have complicated it almost beyond hope.

Allow me to refer back to one of the things mentioned in yesterday’s post about instrumental music: This, too, is a “salvation issue” in that the ways we draw our lines and judge and accuse others reveal whether we are being Christ-like or not, whether we are acting in the spirit of the Law or the spirit of the Spirit, and whether we are considering the needs of others more important than our own.

As discussed yesterday, the ways we act and react to musical instruments and women’s roles has a lot to do with the issues themselves. But the music issue itself, the actual practice of a praise band versus a cappella, may or may not have as much to do with the truth of the Gospel as this women’s role issue might.

My understanding of the Gospel is that God came to earth as Jesus and suffered and died and was raised again to reverse the curse, to defeat sin and death and Satan and everything else that separates us from God. The barriers have all been obliterated. The things that divide are now gone. The things that separate man from God and the things that separate man from man are all destroyed forever in Christ Jesus. Reconciliation — peace, perfect peace — is the holy result: peace between man and God and peace among all mankind. No more distinctions, no more differences, no more barriers or walls. In Christ, all are one. In Christ, all are equal. That’s why the apostle Paul says what he says in Galatians 3: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

If this is a correct view of the Gospel, then our Church of Christ practices as they relate to the limitations placed on women communicates very clearly that while all are equal in Christ, some are more equal than others.

I’m not interested in pushing and arguing for women to be more visible in our worship assemblies for the sake of satisfying the people who may be complaining or leaving because the women are silenced. I would not push for Garrett’s suggestions in order to fall more in line with our prevailing culture or to simply shake things up just so we can shake things up. I am very interested, however, in practices that more faithfully proclaim the Gospel and in traditions that paint a  more accurate picture of our salvation in Christ. Our current practices of restricting women from reading or praying in our public assemblies not only rob the entire Body of passionate, heart-felt, urgent prayers and dramatic, emotional, intentional readings of the Word that we’ll never get otherwise; these practices also present a distorted portrait of the Good News. The picture that Scripture paints, from Genesis to Revelation and the maps in the back, is of a table. Every culture, every tribe, every language, every tongue all at the same table. All nations, all peoples, communing together with one another and with Christ. No social distinctions, no economic barriers, no differences between the races, and no gender issues. It’s a beautiful picture. It’s the Gospel. But it’s not the picture we’re painting when our women are not allowed to participate at that table in the same ways as our men.

The other thing I would observe is that, for the most part, that list of Garrett’s straightforward suggestions above would be rejected by the majority of our Church of Christ congregations. In the Sunday morning corporate worship assembly, most of us cannot imagine women praying or reading Scripture, making announcements or teaching or interpreting a biblical passage or serving the communion meal. Never. Not in the worship center on a Sunday morning. At the same time though — and please check me on this — the vast majority of us would agree that most, if not all, of those things are permissable and even desired in other church settings. It’s OK for a woman to read out loud a verse or two in the classroom upstairs at 9:30 in the morning, but not in the auditorium downstairs at 10:15. It’s perfectly fine for a woman to pray in our living rooms and around our kitchen tables on Sunday night in our small groups, but never in the worship center. At the youth retreat, around the campfire, at our marriage retreats and family encampments, our ladies are encouraged to lead songs and to share their views of Scripture, to pray and to tell their faith stories. But to do so in our official corporate Sunday morning venues would result in emergency elders meetings and piles of new policies to make sure it never happened again.

Now, honestly, what kind of message is that communicating to everybody? We’ve done this for so long, we’ve distinguished between worship settings for so long, we’ve drawn arbitrary lines around and through this thing for so long that a disturbing thing has happened. Most people my age and older believe that the Sunday morning corporate assembly is the “real” worship time and those other times, when the rules are relaxed, are something else. Definitely not official. Most people my age and younger believe just the opposite. They feel like the “real” times of genuine worship are in our living rooms and around our campfires, on the retreats and mission trips. Sunday morning in the auditorium, when the “rules” go into effect, isn’t real. They see it as us just trying to protect a doctrine that doesn’t exist with rules that are not in the Bible to keep everybody happy. Or from getting mad and leaving.

Just like with the music issue, we have horribly distorted the very idea of Christian worship and fed it to our people for decades. We’ve communicated that some of our worship time is more important than other worship times, some of our assemblies are more pleasing to God than others. Yuk.

I believe that most of our folks are aware of the contradictions and the inconsistencies in our practices. But I honestly believe we’ve spent so much energy and spilled so much ink in our Church of Christ history accusing and withdrawing from those who are different, most of our people are afraid to talk about these things out loud for fear of being labeled. It’s going to take strong leadership. It’s going to take shepherds and ministers who are committed to a more faithful proclamation of the Gospel and a more accurate picture of our salvation in Christ. It’s going to take a trust in God’s Holy Spirit. It’s going to take a strong faith in one another. And it’s going to take a serious and discerning eye on the future of the Churches of Christ. It’ll take all those things in order to have the conversations. But I believe that if the conversations are focused on the Gospel aspect of the issue, by the grace of God we’ll come much closer to believing and teaching and practicing the right things.

Peace,

Allan

We’re continuing our chapter-by-chapter reflection of Leroy Garrett’s “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” with a move toward some very specific issues. I would remind as we get into these issues together that most people who discuss them speak in terms of “salvation issues.” Generally, those arguing for more freedom and more grace and bigger-picture thinking in these areas argue that they are not “salvation issues.” Those who argue for more rules and strict adherence to those rules claim to do so because these are “salvation issues.” Allow me to suggest that they are all “salvation issues.” My understanding of “salvation” has led me to conclude that everything is a “salvation issue.”

We get into discussions about “salvation issues” and we start ranking things in order of importance to God, in terms of what’s going to save us or condemn us. And we’ll talk about baptism and church and the authority of Scripture — sometimes we’ll even talk about worship styles — but we never talk about helping the poor or being kind to our enemies. Scripture maintains that those are actually the weightier matters. God has already spoken and made it very clear that he doesn’t give one rip about what we do in our worship to him if our lives are not consistent with his glory. If our lives are not about grace and forgiveness and acceptance and love and service, then whatever else we do with these so-called “salvation issues” simply doesn’t matter. In God’s book, salvation lies in the attitude of the heart. In God’s book, the motivations are what matter. Therefore, in my book, everything’s a salvation issue.

Where’s your heart? Are you motivated more by the Law or by the Spirit? Are your actions and thoughts Christ-like in that you’re considering the needs of others more important than your own? Do you tend to judge and condemn more than you love and accept? See? Salvation issues.

With that foundation in place, let’s consider Garrett’s eighth suggestion for saving our branch of the Christian faith:

Reexamine our position on instrumental worship.

Instead of writing this chapter of the book himself, Garrett gives us an article by Bob Shaw, a Church of Christ preacher in Alberta, Canada. Shaw preaches at an a cappella church and for 25 years fought bitterly against the use of musical instruments in corporate worship. But now he’s changed his stance. Today he sees the question of organs and guitars and drums as a matter of personal preference and congregational choice. Garrett and Shaw both claim we must all come to the same conclusion if the Churches of Christ are to be saved as a viable voice in the Kingdom.

Shaw lists eight reasons why he changed his position on instrumental music during Christian worship, some of them much better than others:

1. All biblical references to singing are addressed to the individual Christian and not to the assembled church. To be consistent, we’d have to say instrumental worship is as wrong at home and in our cars as it is in the auditorium on a Sunday morning. That’s a position we don’t normally take.

2. God is a just God. He’s not going to condemn millions of people for violating a law that’s not even found in the Bible.

3. If this were an important matter, God could have easily made it clear in the Bible. It would have only taken one line!

4. The psalms would not call on God’s people to do something that is sinful.

5. Good, honest, knowledgeable Christians do not see this issue the way we do. They respect the authority of Scripture just as much as us, yet they come to different conclusions.

6. The Bible does not clearly teach that instrumental music in worship is sinful.

7. God would not command the use of musical instruments in the Old Testament, condemn them in the New Testament, and then approve of them again in heaven (Revelation 15:1-3). A merciful and loving God would not give out instruments in heaven after condemning millions of others for using them.

8. The basic problem in all this is distinguishing between matters of faith and matters of opinion. The same argument that condemns instrumental music condemns Sunday Schools, Vacation Bible Schools, multiple cups for the Lord’s Supper, four-part harmony, and on and on. Until we realize that these are opinions over which we can agree to differ, we will continue to divide.

Again, some of these reasons are decent, some are better than others, and some of them, honestly, just don’t hold much water in a serious theological discussion. Shaw’s eighth reason there carries the most weight with me.

Here’s my personal angle on all this:

I favor the use of a cappella music in our corporate worship assemblies. I believe I will always push for a cappella , I will always teach a cappella, and I will always hold up a cappella as the best way for God’s people to sing praises to our Creator and Savior. I can definitely argue that from a historical position. That’s easy. During at least its first 700-900 years, Christ’s Church did not employ instruments of music in worship. I think I could also make a fairly decent argument theologically. There’s something about the many voices forming the one song; the many gifts, the many parts, becoming one, much like Jesus’ Church itself. Admittedly, however, I cannot make the argument from Scripture. It’s just not there.

In judging others and drawing lines of fellowship around the issue of musical instruments in worship, we have horribly distorted one of our fundamental Stone-Campbell maxims. We speak where the Bible speaks and, where the Bible is silent, we speak even more!

The “salvation issue” is in the way we label and accuse, divide and condemn, over musical instruments. The “salvation issue” is in the way we make up rules and draw inconsistent lines around our practices to protect a doctrine that doesn’t exist. It’s in the ways we interpret Scripture by one method when it suits us and by another method when it suits you. You know, the way we treat this issue communicates something to our people. It absolutely communicates. It communicates to our own people and it communicates to the outside world.

The ways we interpret the Bible and approve our policies sends the message to all who are still listening that Christianity is about following rules and drawing lines and adhering to boundaries. Never mind that the rules and boundaries make no sense. Following Jesus means following rules.

We must stop telling our people that it’s OK to worship in that way over there but not this way in here. We must stop telling our teens that it pleases God to sing that song in that room but singing this song in this room is a sin. We must stop telling one another that there’s nothing wrong with worshiping God in that style on this day but not in this style on that day. We’ve lived so long with and in our vain practices of protecting  our own comfort zones and comfort rules that many of us will insist that weddings and funerals are not worship services. When you tell me that an assembly of Christians in the worship center in which the gathered men, women, and children sing songs of praise and thanksgiving to God, prayers are offered to God in the name of Jesus, Holy Scripture is read, and a sermon is preached from the Bible is not a worship assembly because the family of the deceased brought in a violist to play “Amazing Grace,” it makes no sense! Our kids are not stupid. Neither are the people we claim to be trying to win for Christ. They see right through this stuff. And I don’t blame them.

I agree wholeheartedly with Shaw’s final plea in this eighth chapter:

I would not favor going headlong in adopting instrumental music in a Church of Christ… It is right for us to sing a cappella as a matter of personal conviction. It also preserves unity among us. It is our attitude that we must change. Our neighbors resent our unloving, unaccepting, and condemnatory attitude toward those who differ with us, even when they envy our ability to sing. We must come to see a cappella singing as our tradition, the method that is better for us, and not a matter of faith and salvation for everyone else. Unless we do, honest, truth-seeking, unity-minded brothers and sisters will continue to leave us.

I’m blessed to belong to a church family and to serve with church leaders here in Amarillo who are completely committed to our a cappella heritage. We view it as something of which to be very proud. We love it. And we’re dedicated to it. And not one of us can ever imagine that changing. At the same time, we understand that musical instruments in a sermon video, in an announcement, during a wedding or a funeral or a youth campout, or as accompaniment to some special music even in a Sunday assembly in no way compromises that commitment. In no way. We refuse to condemn those who worship with a band. We accept as brothers and sisters all those who submit to the Lordship of Jesus and are striving to live their lives in ways that bring glory to God.

Afterall, it is a salvation issue, right?

Peace,

Allan

See?!? Pudge did throw out the first pitch from behind home plate!

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Today, we jump back into the middle of our chapter-by-chapter review of Leroy Garrett’s “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” I appreciate so much the encouragement you’re giving me via phone, email, text, and quick hits in the church foyer. I really do appreciate it. Again, the ideas and ideals presented in this book are important. The conversations they provoke are critical and must be had if we are to remain a viable voice in the greater Christian community.

Garrett’s seventh suggestion takes us back to the beliefs and practices of one of our early Church of Christ pioneers:

Resurrect the spirit of J. W. McGarvey.

McGarvey (1829-1911) studied at the feet of Alexander Campbell at Bethany College and became one of the best known and most highly regarded preachers in the Stone-Campbell movement. Throughout Kentucky and Tennessee, and beyond, McGarvey’s scholarly credentials were unmatched and unquestioned. He wrote a popular and highly influential commentary on Acts that still impacts a lot of our heritage today. And he vigorously, adamantly, unflinchingly opposed instrumental music in worship.

He fought against organs in our churches for decades. He fought hard. He was the first to argue that instruments in the church was a sin. McGarvey is the one credited with forming our arguments against instruments, including the “argument from silence” (which I once used passionately, even though I knew it didn’t make sense). Yet, while he argued and debated against the instruments in corporate worship, he absolutely refused to divide over the issue. That mindset — we can disagree without dividing; disagreeing is fine, dividing is a sin — is what Garrett says must be resurrected among our people.

[McGarvey] lived in the eye of the storm of the controversy that led to the separation of Churches of Christ, formerly recognized in 1906. It is noteworthy that in spite of his opposition to the organ, he refused to make it a test of fellowship, and when the Churches of Christ finally separated over the organ question, he refused to go along. He believed that the Movement did not have to divide over such differences, that there could be “organ” churches and “non-organ” churches and still maintain fellowship.

Even though he left his old home church when it brought in the organ, he did not break fellowship with that church. He still visited and occasionally preach for them, and that is where his funeral was conducted. In short, McGarvey was not a sectarian or an exclusivist. If the Churches of Christ are to be saved, they must resurrect the spirit of McGarvey. Like him, they can be strong in their convictions, including being non-instrumental, without consigning to hell all those who believe and practice differently. Like McGarvey, the Churches of Christ must not make a cappella singing a test of fellowship. Again, like McGarvey, we can even say that for us instrumental music would be a sin in that it would violate our conscience to use it in worship, but we must not make it a sin for others. We must allow for honest differences on such issues.

Garrett also points out in this chapter that David Lipscomb couldn’t understand that McGarvey was opposed to instruments in worship but also supported missionary societies. He didn’t see how McGarvey could be opposed to multiple cups for communion and, at the same time, teach and preach in favor of cooperative efforts among different denominations.

McGarvey couldn’t be labeled. He couldn’t be pegged. That’s the beauty of his outlook, his theology, his practices. He sounds so “Church of Christ,” but he was actually of the “Disciples of Christ” stream. How he believed and behaved, how he lived his faith, didn’t make sense to those who were looking to accuse and judge. And we should be the same way.

We ought to be able to study and reflect on the Scriptures and church history and our own faith and reach our own conclusions, as individuals and as congregations, without binding them on anybody else. When we believe and practice based on our own understandings of truth and grace (both!), we will inevitably reach conclusions that don’t fit comfortably on anybody’s A-B Line of reasoning. You can at once be for trashing all the computers and PowerPoints and yanking the screens down from the worship center in order to use song books and, at the same time, push for women to be involved in the serving of communion. You can wear a suit and tie and refer to your church family as “brethren” and, at the same time, sing on the praise team and read from The Message. You can sing When I Survey the Wondrous Cross with the band and still schedule Sunday night church and insist on an invitation at the end of every sermon. It won’t make sense to those who want to label and divide. But it’s what’s best for all of us. It’s a proactive way of doing things, not reactive. It’s not a compromised position, it’s the responsible position. Disagree without dividing.

It disturbed Lipscomb that McGarvey would fellowship “brothers in error,” a bromide we have hung on ourselves all these years. McGarvey realized that those were the only ones he had to fellowship, for we are all in error about some things. That is precisely the point of Christian fellowship — that we accept each other as Christ has accepted us (Romans 15:7), and that includes all hang-ups, warts, and errors of all sorts. As Christ accepted us! Were we all free of error and right about everything when Christ in his love and mercy accepted us? How compelling!

[McGarvey] preached for “organ” churches during most of his long ministry, and he insisted that they not defer to his scruples during his visit. This he did because he understood what the fellowship of the Spirit is about. It transcends differences over secondary matters.

Peace,

Allan