Unity and the Church of Christ - Reviving the Ancient Faith commentary, post 1

In his book, "Reviving the Ancient Faith," Church of Christ historian Richard Hughes attempts to tell the history of the Church of Christ. Part of that task involves Hughes defining what the Church of Christ actually is.

Whatever it is, it probably gets together in something that looks like this.

The problem with Churches of Christ, though, is that they are often quite different from one congregation to the next.  It's difficult to say whether any given Church of Christ you walk into will be:

• Pre-millenial (a church that believes a Rapture will happen, followed by a literal 1,000 year reign of Jesus on the earth)
• Non-Class (meaning they think having Sunday School is a sin, and if your church has Bible Classes before the sermon, buddy, you are going to HELL)
• One-Cup (meaning they think that everybody partaking the Lord's Supper must drink the Welch's grape juice from one cup, no matter how appallingly disgusting that is, no matter if the first person who drank it has halitosis, gum disease, super-AIDS, or literally just finished eating a turd.  Jesus only passed one cup, they say, and although they don't insist on doing it in an upper room and follow literally no other minute, nitpicky details from the account, if you drink from multiple cups, buddy, you are going to HELL!)
• Non-Institutional (meaning they believe if you so much as spend one shiny penny from the church's treasury to support an orphan's home, food bank, disaster relief effort, Christian college, or literally anything else, then buddy, you are going to HELL.  Also, you had better not eat any food within the confines of the church building.  [Urination and defecation, however, are for some unknown reason acceptable.]  No other brands of Churches of Christ are Christians.  They're going to HELL right along with the atheists.  Also referred to as "Anti" or "Non-Cooperation," which really makes them mad, but is absurdly apt.)
• Non-located Preacher (meaning that if you pay a preacher to work at your congregation, buddy, you are going to HELL.)
• Mainline (meaning they are not quite as right-wing nutjob as the previous ones, but still quite conservative compared to other denominations.  They only marginally accept the other brands as brothers in Christ, but if you are "liberal," then, buddy, you are going to HELL.  Also, if you are not a member of the Church of Christ, also known as "The Lord's Church" or "the One True Church," then, buddy, you are going to HELL.)
• African-American/White congregations (Churches of Christ are still largely voluntarily segregated.  AA congregations are often quite conservative, conducting more lively services, but falling largely in line with mainline congregations.)
• Progressive (meaning they do things like having praise teams, possibly allow the women to pass communion trays, occasionally raise their hands in worship, and generally tend to focus on the grace of Christ, as opposed to the mainline's typical legalist approach to salvation and scripture.  Somewhat ecumenical, but largely focused inward.  They won't necessarily TELL you that you're going to HELL, but they may think it quietly to themselves, buddy.)
• Instrumental (meaning they allow instruments of music to be used in worship services.  This could be anything from a piano and/or organ, "special music" performances, a choir, or even a band.  Many of these congregations are just a step away from being part of the Christian Church denomination, but have yet to make the transition.  Also, women may lead singing or prayers in some.)
• ICOC (or International Churches of Christ, AKA the Boston Movement or Crossroads Movement.  Let's just be real, this version is flat-out a cult.  They practice extreme discipling and have harsh disciplinary measures for their adherents.  If you are in this church, get out now.)

They all sound so delightful.  Which one should I choose?

The church that Hughes will focus on in his book is the mainline, but the very existence of all these splinter groups calls into question one of the very tentpoles of Church of Christ theology, which is a plea for unity.  From the beginning of the Restoration Movement, Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone, along with many others had invisioned their movement to be one of unity.  They assumed (quite wrongly, as it turns out) that humanity wasn't, well, human, and thus harder to move in one direction than a herd of wet cats.  They assumed that if everyone would just pick up their Bibles and work out by scientific method the right way to believe, everyone would all come together.  And thus, they would usher in the End of Days.  (True story, but we'll wait for another post for that.)  Everyone in Christendom would band together, Jesus would come back, and we'd all have rainbows coming out of our anterior orifices.

Instead, this happened.

I've often heard members of the Church of Christ lament their divisions.  "If people in the world see us splitting so often, how will they think we're any different from them?"  It's a good question, worthy of being asked repeatedly.  The problem for those in the Church of Christ is that they're routinely splitting on even smaller issues than the ones listed above.  There are infinite reasons why they have such bickering and back-biting.  If I may pull from my own memory, I'd like to list a few reasons that I saw congregations split right down the middle:

• Embezzlement of church funds
• Sexual impropriety
• One person's need to be a big fish in an extraordinarily small pond
• Whether or not a woman must cover her head when she prays or attends worship
• The use of a pitch pipe in leading singing
• An elder becoming senile and refusing to step down
• Racism
• The preacher told too many jokes from the pulpit
• Whether or not it was "scriptural" to support a Christian college
• The church was publicly excommunicating people that hadn't been in attendance for over 2 years
• Voting on who can be a member
• Making Wednesday night services mandatory
• The preacher was too hard/too soft on certain members' sins
• The church built a building in a place some members didn't want it to be
• A congregation merged with another congregation that some members didn't desire to merge with
• The preacher asked both women and men to reply to his "good morning" from the pulpit
• The church spent money on a sports day for its members, which is not "authorized" in scripture
• The preacher had toys from his childhood on display in his office
• Women staffed a nursery and weren't in the sanctuary/auditorium, thus were "forsaking the assembly"
• The preacher refused to wear a jacket, in the South, in August, and sometimes his ties featured cartoon characters
• Someone disagreed with someone else and took their entire family with them, whether they wanted to leave or not

This is the church you want me to join?  Where do I sign up???

Some reasons for splitting are very important.  I doubt anyone would argue that something needed to be done about the embezzlement and the sexual impropriety.  But most of the things on that list?  COME ON.  

In John 17:20-23, it says "My prayer is not for them alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.  I in them and you in me--so that they may be brought to complete unity.  Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

Church of Christ people get very testy if one does not include at least one scripture reference, whether it's in context or not.

The problem, then, is the Church of Christ interpretation of unity.  They claim to seek it, but in truth, they only want "unity" in the sense of "agreeing with everything I say."  That is one of the major reasons for a great many of the splits that were listed above.  For instance, take "the preacher wearing a tie with cartoon characters" on it.  For you and me, the choice of dress would probably be a non-issue.  Maybe you don't agree with it, but you're not really going to start an argument about it.  Because it's pointless, and it doesn't matter.  NOT SO in Churches of Christ.  Because they have this false definition of unity, you MUST agree on EVERYTHING.  Otherwise, it's splitsville.  

I can hear you right now, Church of Christ people.  I can hear the thought that is gurgling around in your brain.  "But," you are preparing to say in the comments below, "that's just one bad person.  That's just one congregation.  All Churches of Christ are different.  You said so yourself."  And here it comes...wait for it...WAIT FOR IT... "Not all churches are like this.  My church isn't.  You just found a bad one."

All I can say is this:  while I have been in congregations of the Church of Christ that have had long stretches of harmony, NONE of them that I am aware of have gone a generation without some sort of split or dust-up.  Few are the congregations that were free from controversy.  And almost always, it came down to their interpretation of unity.  For them, unity cannot mean "you do your thing, I'll do mine, and we'll both live side-by-side peacefully."

No, for them it means the exact opposite.  If your congregation chooses to send treasury money to orphan's homes, ours will publicly harangue you.  If you, as a woman, choose to wear a head covering, and I don't want to, you have to stop, otherwise you are sowing discord.  If your congregation chooses to use an instrument, then never mind that we don't have to in ours, because we are going to write you up in a newspaper and slander your name all over the country.  So some members are planning a potluck in the building?  Yes, I know I could just opt not to join in, but NO, you must all stop doing it just because I don't agree with it.  Unity or DIE!

And that is just within the denomination.  Let's not get into how they regard the Baptists, Methodists, or any other group.  They're just plain non-Christians and are going to Hell anyway.

I'm often asked the question, since I left the Church of Christ as a whole, "well, whose church do you belong to?"  To which I would respond, "even if I joined yours, which one is the right one?"