1. Free to Change
2. Freedom and Responsibility
3. My Kind of People
4. "Come Out And Be Separate"
5. Private Intepretation
6. A "Monkey-Wrench" Scripture
7. The Truth That Frees
8. Literary Devices
9. Fear of God
10. A Love Story
11. The Three Trees In Eden
12. Imputed Righteousness
13. Different Essentials For Different People
14. God's Sons In All Ages
15. Looking To Lust
16. Divorce Her!
17. "While Her Husband Is Alive"
18. "They Won't Let Me Preach!"
19. God's Perplexing Prophets
20. Religous Titles
21. Who Sinned?
22. "I'll Join Your Church"
23. The Church As The Route To Heaven
24. One Hundred Years Old
25. Can Our Churches Unite?
26. Can The Cause Of Sickness Be The Cure?
27. When Life Begins
28. Abortion: Law Or Principle?
29. Human Chattel
30. The Hope of Israel
31. The Great Temptation of Jesus
32. The Rich Man And Lazarus
33. My Hermeneutic
34. Is Immersion Proved By Example?
35. Who Gets The Credit?
36. Hook's Points
37. Heresy
38. I Am A Debtor

Other Books at Freedom's Ring

No, I am not one hundred years old! This is the one-hundredth birthday of the Church of Christ! I began this paper on August 18, 1989, the centennial anniversary of the beginning of the Church of Christ.

While I recognize that religious movements can not look back to a specific date as the time of their origin, as we have often tried to define for other churches, August 18, 1889 is the most likely candidate for our origin as a separate body. That was only thirty years before I was born.

Generally, our people have never heard of such a suggested time for our beginning because even those who know of it are not too willing to admit it. You have not heard of any centennial celebrations. I am not celebrating, but I am reflecting on it.

I can recall my shock several years ago when I read a statement by Leroy Garrett that, if he had to choose a beginning date, that would be it. I can well understand the reaction that you may be having to what I am writing, but I beg you to consider what I have to say.

You may be protesting inwardly, "You are crazy; we all know that the Church of Christ was established in A.D. 33." Probably, you have seen inscribed on the cornerstone of some of our older meeting houses: "Established A.D.33." Such cornerstones would be more convincing as witnesses, however, if we could, in an archaeological dig, find some in ancient Jerusalem, Samaria, or Antioch engraved with "Church of Christ, Established A.D. 33" or simply with "Church of Christ."

When people obeyed the gospel on Pentecost, the Lord saved them and added them together as his new congregation which we have called the church. The saved people then and thereafter were not a structured organization with such external marks that they can be identified and traced through history. Any effort to detect a continuous lineage or succession of the saved is futile. But we find it hard to believe that there has been a time in intervening centuries when there were no saved people. The gates of hell were not to prevail against this kingdom which was destined to stand forever.

No one of whom I know has tried to trace a group known as the Church of Christ back to Pentecost. If there were saved people during the centuries, they were either in unnamed groups or among the historic churches.

That is where Thomas and Alexander Campbell come into the picture. Concluding that there were saved people among the various fellowships, they set about to unite the Christians in the sects. They began to bring disciples together as "Christians only but not the only Christians." It was a unity movement with much appeal and exciting success. In 1832 the movements led by Barton W. Stone and Alexander Campbell agreed to unite in spite of some major differences which were allowed by the ecumenical spirit.

As the movement progressed, many ideas about restoration of the church began to be taught. There began to be a real conflict between the aims of unity and restoration. Efforts to refine restoration concepts developed patternism and legalism. Restorationism began to supplant the unity efforts because of its divisive nature. Great conflicts arose as men tried to define all the necessary details of the pattern to be restored. A judgmental, exclusive spirit began to replace the irenic, accepting spirit of unity.

Some of the matters which developed into dividing issues were methods of raising money, missionary societies, the use of instrumental music, the use of choirs, the pastor system, and whether there were actually saved people among the sects. Many began to be judgmental refusing to accept other disciples because of differences in belief and practice.

Daniel Sommer was a forceful leader among those who opposed the things mentioned above and other "innovations." Disciples of the area began having annual meetings at Sand Creek, Illinois in 1873. In one of those meetings of about 6,000 conservative disciples on August 18, 1889, during a long speech by Sommer, a document approved by five area churches was inserted, being read by Peter P. Warren. This document declared that those who continued to practice those innovations would no longer be regarded as brethren. That proved to be a sort of official announcement of the first division of the unity movement begun by Stone and the Campbells..

Through those earlier years of progress, some groups went under the name of Christian Church calling themselves Christians individually. Others accepted Christian Church for the group but called themselves Disciples of Christ individually. Still others designated themselves as the Church of Christ. Increasingly, after this point in history, the conservative disciples accepted the fellowship of the Church of Christ. Both the numbers and the distinctions grew so that seventeen years later, in 1906, the Church of Christ was listed in the United States census as a separate body for the first time.

Rejecting the thought that there might be Christians in the sects, this group abandoned the original purpose of the Campbells and began to teach unity through conformity to a supposed pattern set forth in the New Testament writings. Disagreements as to what that pattern authorizes and prohibits have led to a proliferation of splinter groups. Thus the unity plea has been negated by our practice.

The movement which progressed, claiming to be Christians only but not the only Christians and trying to unite the Christians among the sects, now had to deal with a group divided from it because of a complete turn-around. The Churches of Christ soon began to declare that there are no Christians among the sects and that we are the only Christians.

In making this change, the Church of Christ has become a sect itself or, actually, a group of disagreeing sects. When a group refuses to recognize other disciples as being brothers in Christ, that group has become sectarian. We became an identifiable body distinct from all others and we accepted a distinguishing (denominating) name which is used in the census, telephone directory, deeds, signs on our buildings, our letterheads, and advertizements. Although many of us try to avoid the use of the specific name Church of Christ by writing it church of Christ with the lower case c, that designation becomes a specific proper name also.

Are we of the various divisions of the Church of Christ the "one, true church"? Do any or all of them encompass all of God's congregation of the saved? We are saved people but not all of the saved. When each of us obeyed the gospel, we were made a part of God's universal congregation by the Lord's own adding. Then when each of us accepted membership in a group which rejects others whom the Lord added, we joined a sectarian group. Even non-aligned persons who meet in "house churches" become sectarian when they refuse fellowship with all the saved. This all becomes very frightening because we endanger our individual salvation in creating and maintaining division by rejecting other brothers in Christ.

If there are no saved disciples among the sects, where are we going to find them? Which group can you point to as the Lord's true congregation composed of all and only the saved? Our search cycles us back to the ecumenical aims of the Stone-Campbell Movement.

Whether you agree with me or not, I think that you can appreciate the suggestion that August 18, 1889 is the most likely specific date for the beginning of the Church of Christ. And we will have to concede that we are more "Sommerite" than "Campbellite"!

You do not hear much, if anything, about this because it is not something that we want to face. It is not something that feeds our pride. There have been no centennial celebrations. Rather than celebrating this centennial, I am pondering it wistfully. Rather than taking delight in this candid presentation of our history, I am hoping that somehow it will help you to recognize our party spirit and to extend your hand of fellowship across our sectarian lines. You can accept other disciples as brothers without endorsing or approving all that they believe and practice and without imposing your opinions and convictions on them.

We will hope that, if the Church of Christ endures for another hundred years, it will be able to celebrate its bi-centennial happily___as a part of God's universal congregation claiming to be Christians only with no exclusive thoughts of being the only Christians.

(Researched history of our beginnings can be read in Christians Only, by James DeForest Murch, and The Stone-Campbell Movement, by Leroy Garrett.)