WHY DO WE SPEAK AS WE DO?

 

Preface to this article: Our "News & Views" two weeks ago was titled "Why Do We Talk As We Do?" This edition of "News & Views" is a sequel to that article and addresses another way in which we are guilty of the wrong kind of speech. I have changed one word in the title of this article from the previous article – the word "Talk" to the word "Speak." In accordance with I Peter 4:11, "speak" sharpens the focus this article intends to bring. I am aware that some of my readers will think that what I say in this article is much ado about nothing. Too, I acknowledge that this will be considered a hard hitting article by some of my readers. I am reminded, however, of the farmer who was breaking his mule and began by taking a 2 x 4 and hitting the mule squarely across the head, staggering the animal. A neighbor who observed the action asked the farmer why he had hit the mule in such a brutal fashion, to which the farmer replied, "Well, before you can break a mule, you have to first get its attention." I hope to get my readers' attention with this article and cause them to reflect on how so many think, speak, and write about the church in a denominational way. Until we have a clear, biblical, undenominational, non-sectarian view of the church we will never grow "with a growth which is from God" (Colossians 2:19, NASB). Instead, we will continue to think and speak of the church as a denomination, and untaught members will shuffle from one religious group to another, thinking there are no significant differences between them, and therefore no significant consequences to be suffered. I urge you to give the following article a careful, thoughtful reading.

 

I continue to be dismayed by the denominational terminology that I increasingly hear and read so many of my brethren using, including elders, preachers, Bible professors, and others who should know better. For example, not long ago I read where a preacher (who is also a Bible professor) posted on a website and spoke of "CofC churches." He was alerting churches of Christ to how long it might take them to find a preacher if they should be in need of one. He was underscoring the shortage of gospel preachers, or, as per his thinking, "Church of Christ" preachers. His terminology, however, was sectarian and denominational to the core! Some of my progressive brothers now speak unabashedly of "Church of Christ churches." How redundant can one be, to say nothing of being utterly unbiblical!

 

On another website I read where one who claims to be learned among us referred to "the Stone-Campbell tradition of churches." In this, he was including the churches of Christ, but he was speaking of them as though they were but one of many religious traditions in the broader "Christian community of believers," i.e., his view that the church is just another denomination among many other denominations. I hear and read of brethren who refer to the church as "our tradition, our tribe, our tributary, our little corner of the kingdom," etc. In God's matchless plan for Christianity He made no allowance for various traditions, tribes, tributaries, and corners in His kingdom! In fact, His word forbids and severely condemns such. (See John 17:20-21; Romans 16:17; I Corinthians 1:10-13; Ephesians 4:1-6).

 

A columnist for what purports to be the brotherhood newspaper spoke of her "Church of Christ" friends, lumping them in with her Baptist and Methodist friends. As per her thinking, all three groups fall into the same category. But are they all in the same category? Is the body (church) of Christ just another denomination originating with men such as the Baptists and Methodists? How far some have come from thinking, speaking, and writing simply about "churches of Christ" or "churches of God" (Romans 16:16; II Thessalonians 1:4; et. al.)! Is it not enough to speak of individual members of the body of Christ simply as "Christians"? (Acts 11:26). Why do so many today resort to expressing themselves in ways which the New Testament writers never thought of, spoke of, or wrote of?  "CofC churches" indeed! "Church of Christ" friends! What an embarrassing shame such speakers and writers should feel for their denominational view of the Lord's church!

 

When I read such statements, I ask myself, "What have these guys been reading? Where do they come up with such terminology?" Unfortunately, I know the answer to my questions. These men (and women) have lost all sight (if indeed they ever had such) of the restoration principle and the restoration plea and the great work of going back to the New Testament alone to determine how to become and be God's people in the 21st century. They have totally lost the import of Peter's words, "If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God" (I Peter 4:11a). Their notion seems to be, "If anyone speaks let him speak as the religious (denominational) world around us speaks." After all, we do not want to sound exclusive or be offensive!

 

Was the church of which we read in the New Testament a denomination? Can we be today what it was then? Why then this lumping of God's church with the denominations that men have founded? Why speak "the language of Ashdod" (Nehemiah 13:23-24), the language of sectarians and denominationalists, when we can and should speak as the oracles of God? Of course, before we can speak as the oracles of God, we must first be informed in the oracles of God.

 

Yes, I know that over the years I have written much along the lines above, but I have no intention of letting up in my efforts to set before my readers the beautiful bride of Christ, the church of my Lord in all its radiant splendor as depicted on the pages of the New Testament.

 

As I close this essay, I want to acknowledge that many members (hopefully, most) do not view the church as a denomination and do not wish to intentionally portray it as such. But they find themselves living in a denominational world and have thoughtlessly and unknowingly adopted denominational language. After all, so goes the thinking, if I have friends and family members who are Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans, Nazarenes, etc., then I must be Church of Christ! They have not learned how not to think and speak in denominational terms about the undenominational church of the New Testament. A sweet lady who resides in the Senior Living Community where I now live and a member of the body of Christ since her youth, recently stopped by my dinner table, leaned over and whispered to me, "We have a new resident and she's 'Church of Christ.' " She meant no harm and just sincerely wanted me to know that another sister in Christ was now a part of our community, but she had never been taught nor had she learned how to speak biblically of one who is just a Christian without any denominational affiliation, a person who is only a member of the spiritual body of Christ, the church. To all such, I urge thoughtful and careful reflection on what I have written above.

 

Hugh Fulford