Church Infallibility
Several years ago, when I preached on "Church Infallibility," some of my brethren thought I was going digressive. They seemed even then to think that instead of "practice makes perfect," it should be, "practice makes scriptural". I thought I saw then, as far back as the early "forties," an irresistible wave of "church of Christ infallibility" doctrine sweeping the land. If a teaching came from D. L. C. or A. C. C., or Harding, F. H. C., it just had to be right. We have preached the church more than we have preached Christ — and I mean by this that we have preached the church as the standard of authority. I pointed out long ago that this is the "chief cornerstone" of Roman Catholicism. But of course I was a near-digressive in the eyes of some, and a Sommerite in the eyes of others.
If you are going to preach the church to sinners, rather than Christ, just what New Testament congregation will you use as your example — Corinth, the churches of Galatia, or Laodicea? Or if you take the universal church of apostolic times, will you include these congregations, and others I could list from the New Testament records? Don't you think that when it comes to measuring our teachings and practices, we had better stick to such statements as II John 9?