Author's Preface
1. Accepting Or Uniting
   
2. Who Is A Christian?
   
3. "Why Don't You Leave The Church of Christ?"
   
4. The Iniquity Of The Fathers
   
5. Our Judicial System
   
6. "You Are My People Now"
   
7. Serving "Otherwise Than As Prescribed"
   
8. Does Baptize Really Mean To Immerse
   
9. Our Relationship Through Baptism
   
10. Those Gospel Meetings
    
11. A Prelude To Worship
    
12. Worshipping In Spirit And Truth
    
13. The Forbidden Prayer
    
14. "I Didn't Hear Nobody Pray"
    
15. Communion Prayers
    
16. Communion With Bread, Wine, And Money
    
17. Thursday Is The Lord's Day Too!
    
18. Not Forsaking The Assembly
    
19. Acts 20:7 One More Time
    
20. Our Father Who Art Where?
    
21. Does Nature Reveal God's Love
    
22. Copyrighted: All Rights Reserved
    
23. Don't Pour Water On Them
    
24. The Remaining Restriction For Women
    
25. Some Questions About Revelation
    
26. Must One Fully Repent Before Baptism?
    
27. Nicodemus In Context
    
28. Our Respected Myths Of Religion
    
29. Hook's Points: A Potpourri
    

While reading some of my material, one woman became so upset that she called me and angrily demanded, "Why don't you leave the Church of Christ? You hate it so much!"

Several other readers, expressing agreement with my writings, have inquired, "Have you left the Church of Christ?" or "Are you still in the Church of Christ?"

Although these questions are similar, I am convinced that there is a great difference in the understanding of those who asked them. A candid look into their questions in relation to the nature of the church will reveal a contrast between Biblical unity and sectarianism. It may clear some of the barriers to muchneeded reformation and acceptance. Let me explore this with you.

On the "birthday of the church," the word church is not even used. Acts 2:47 indicates that the Lord added to their number (added to them or added together) day by day those who were being saved. They became God's congregation, or assembly, in its universal, or catholic, identity. Although the word church is a mistranslation of ekklesia which means congregation or assembly, we will accept its common usage in this treatise. Even if the saved were in different localities, they had all been baptized by one Spirit into one body (1 Cor. 12:13). A body has members; the church does not. The church is those who are in the state or condition of being saved, and the saved have no members.

In consideration of the different aspects of their essence, these saved were referred to as the disciples, the believers, the saints, the body, the church, the assembly of God, the church of God, the church of the Lord, etc. and various localized groups were identified as churches of Christ and churches of the saints. None of these descriptive designations of the saved ones was used as a title or proper name for either the church as a whole or for local assemblies.

People did not associate themselves with the church of their choice, for the Lord has only one. He sets all the saved into his one body. But people were not baptized into the church at Jerusalem, Corinth, Antioch, or any other locality. The Lord does not add us to individual congregations but to his universal assembly.

Local groups may go astray. They may become misdirected, corrupt, divisive, exclusive, and/or sectarianspirited. When a group excludes other disciples because of doctrinal convictions (other than those that deny the basis of the gospel), that group becomes sectarian and divisive. When a group distinguishes itself from others by a name, even a Biblical designation, it becomes a denomination. To name is to denominate. Thus a segment of the saved within the universal congregation becomes a sectarian denomination by its exclusive stance.

The Lord does not add us to local groups, nor does the Spirit baptize us into them. We choose fellowship in them. This is a point that our people generally have failed to grasp. We have believed that when we are baptized, we are automatically added to the local congregation. But we have never faced the perplexity that God would be adding people to sectarian groups which will tolerate no fellowship with each other. Some are able to admit that God adds saved ones to various splinter groups as long as they wear the denominating name Church of Christ. But if they wear some other distinguishing name like Christian Church, Community Church, or Church of God, no way!

This presents a special problem for our time of sectarian divisions. Where is that universal church to which the Lord adds the saved? There may be some unnamed nonsectarian house churches or independent assemblies of it, but it is not in any identifiable organized form on this earth. Generally, the saved ones have identified with various congregations of people who are imperfect in understanding, misdirected, in error (including you and me!), sectarian spirited, divisive, and are eager to perpetuate their particular party. There are no perfect congregations or organized groups! Not one! There never has been one! There never will be one! All the brothers we have are brothers in error! We are all in company with our own kind!

Can a person remain saved in one of these divisions? Yes, not because he is in it but in spite of his being in it. You can, and do, live in association with liars, thieves, drunkards, adulterers, proud people, misdirected people, and sectarianspirited people without approving or partaking of their sins. You are not accountable for that which you disavow and decry. In younger days I would look out over the congregation and think how pure and proper all those good people of God were. But I have lived long enough now to know that all the abovementioned sins can be found in most any sizeable congregation. And it may not have to be too sizeable! Can God's saved be among them? Certainly, for there is no other situation in which he finds his disciples. One is called upon to refrain from all corruption of morals, doctrine, and practice, but no one can do it perfectly. All are sinners. We are sinners saved by grace. The church is God's collection of sinners saved by grace. Their only claim to perfection is that God counts them as though they have no sins. He credits Christ's sinlessness to their accounts. Paul would have us meekly to judge ourselves rather than our brother (1 Cor. 11:2732; Rom. 14).

Briefly, I have pictured the situation all the saved are in. We have refused to look at this reality, denied its truthfulness, and resisted those who teach it. While garnishing the tombs of Stone, Campbell, and the pioneers of our Movement, we stone those who currently teach these very things they taught.

Those friends who ask, "Are you still in the Church of Christ?" are aware of the difference in the church of Christ in its universal sense and the Church of Christ in its local entities. They know that the Lord added me to his church by saving me, and they are not asking if I have left that fellowship, nor are they accusing me of losing my salvation. These inquirers understand that, after the Lord saved me, I became a part of a segregated group called the Church of Christ. They correctly understand that by the one Spirit I was not baptized into a local group that was less than the whole. I joined one. All right, for you who abhor the word joined, I placed membership!

Both membership and placing membership are unscriptural terms. One does not hold membership among the saved, and if one did, it would not be something that could be placed somewhere. We devised both euphemistic expressions to accommodate our joining with divided groups.

The Lord adds us to the one body, but we then align ourselves with distinctive groups like the Church of Christ, the Christian Church, or others. We even have a menu of choices of different kinds of Churches of Christ with which to become affiliated. The Lord doesn't add us to all of them or any of them. We choose them without divine directive. Such choices make sectarian denominations. Our fellowship in the universal church is not an at large membership in all the splintered groups.

When we exclude others of God's children from our group, we become sectarian. When we give that fellowship a name to distinguish it from others, we designate it as a denomination. Who can deny, while maintaining integrity, that each segment of the Church of Christ and Christian Church fits the definition of a sectarian denomination?

Using a Biblical term to distinguish the group does not alter the case. Accepting church of Christ instead of Church of Christ does not remedy the error, either. That violates proper grammar because church of Christ is being used as a proper noun on the sign, bulletin, letterhead, church and telephone directories, and in conversation. That evasion fools no one but ourselves, and some of us are catching on! A local, exclusive church of Christ is not identical with the universal church of Christ. It is high time for us to recognize that, eat our humble pie, and begin to make correction.

So when these people ask me if I am still in the Church of Christ, they are asking if I have changed my membership from one sectarian group to another. They realize that there is no one true church in organized form out there somewhere for me to join.

In answer to them I say that I am still in a sectarianspirited Church of Christ, but I denounce its exclusive claims and accept disciples across our denominational lines. What other alternative do I have?

I had no lengthy discussion with the sincere woman who asked why I do not leave the Church of Christ, so the things I say here are my conjectures. She holds the traditional view that the Lord adds the saved to the universal church of Christ, which is identified as the Church of Christ congregations. She thinks she never joined a splinter group when she placed membership where she attends. It could not be sectarian. But she betrays her own ambiguity, as we shall see.

Let me ask her and you a question. If I should want to leave the Church of Christ or church of Christ, how would I go about it?

Give me a Bible answer. If it is the church that the Lord added me to, how may I get out of it? Since the Lord added me to it, only he can subtract me from it! He may do that at the judgment, but not before. When we presume to put people out of the church or exclude them from it, we are most arrogant. If we consider the congregation as identical with the universal church, then we are presuming to put people out of, or excluding them from, the Lord's church!

Was she really asking me if I had left the universal church? I think not. She was thinking of my joining another sectarian group. Without her realizing it, this woman indicated that she thought of the Church of Christ as an entity which we may choose to join or leave. That can happen only in a sectarian division. But the Lord does not give me that choice. By his choice I was added to his one church; by my choice I was added to a local, exclusive church. I can remove myself from the local, sectarian group; only he can cast me out of his church.

In answering her question, I will say that I am still in the church of Christ (universal) and also a Church of Christ division. I remain in the latter because it is my heritage and I have not found a better one, but not because I think all of God's saved are in it. I recognize my fellowship with all of the saved regardless of where they are. God still has only one "assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven" even though its constituents are separated from each other in exclusive parties.

I am convinced that I have pictured the only practical course for unity. Too long we have presumed that God demands total conformity of faith and practice in congregations of identical pattern-perfect people in a perfect church! The church is composed of imperfect people whom God has called together and saved. But they are still imperfect. And when you assemble a group of them together, you have an imperfect congregation. There have been no exceptions, and there never will be. As lifelong sinners saved by grace, we must continue to "welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God" (Rom. 15:7). Thus we "maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." May his grace bring you peace.