A Faith To Live By
The old, familiar hymn, "Faith of Our Father," is in all too many cases exactly that — a faith by which our fathers lived, but which has little meaning or relevance to our fathers' children. No matter how precious and meaningful "the faith" was to our fathers, it is of no value at all unless it becomes OUR faith, as well as our fathers'. Elton Trueblood's little book, Common Ventures, deals with four crucial situations in the life of man: birth, marriage, work, and death. That birth and death come to all of us goes without saying. The thing that makes them crucial is not simply that they happen, but the attitude we take toward them. Some sort of decision concerning them is absolutely unavoidable. One's entire behavior between birth and death will depend in no small measure on his beliefs concerning these two events. It is the issue of origin and destiny.
Other writers, both living and dead, have expanded these "crucial situations" to make them include such things as guilt, doubt, suffering, and anxiety. In each of these areas the soul may face a crisis — what William James refers to as a "forced" option. If one does not purposefully take one option, then he will inevitably be forced into the other. There is no standing stilt. If one does not truly and realistically believe that he is God's creature and act in harmony with that belief, he will become a practical (not theoretical, but practical) atheist. If one does not deal constructively and resolutely with suffering, then he will lapse into destructive self-pity or rebellious defiance and hatred of God. He is facing a forced option. Failure to take one alternative makes the other a certainty. Jesus said it with utter finality so many centuries ago. "He that is not with me is against me; and hs that gathereth not with me scattereth." (Matt. 12:30).
That the churches of our Lord and we, as individuals, are moving rapidly into one of those "crucial situations" is obvious to any perceptive student. The article by Brother Ketcherside this week points it up. To those who have kept abreast of growing trends these past few years the "options" before us (both as churches and as individuals) are fairly obvious. The choices before us are simply stated: (1) The Bible is clear enough that it CAN be understood and obeyed by the man who is truly desirous of finding and doing God's will, or (2) the Bible is so difficult of understanding that honest and sincere people can NEVER hope to come to agreement as to its teaching. Most of the readers of the Gospel Guardian have committed themselves to the first option, and that is "the faith by which they live." They sincerely believe they are in the way of truth and righteousness, and are in fellowship with all others who "walk in the light." Obviously, they are not in fellowship with those who differ from them on basic and fundamental issues.
Brother Ketcherside (if we understand him) has taken the second option, concluding that honest and sincere men simply can NOT agree on what the Bible teaches; and, consequently, fellowship between and among them must be on some basis other than strict adherence to an infallible standard. Believing this, he considers himself to be in fellowship with "all those who share a common life, the life of the Father and of the Son, through the indwelling Spirit of God." He says "It is the reception of Jesus Christ as the hope of salvation that makes him (one) 'acceptable in the beloved'." We confess we are unable to see the logic of Brother Ketcherside's refusal to fellowship godly and pious Methodists and Presbyterians simply because of their misunderstanding of the action of baptism. To us it is a peculiar type of mentality that views God as being indifferent to a thing like a perversion of his worship (instrumental music), yet adamant and unyielding as to the amount of water used in baptism! Brother Ketcherside makes this distinction; we cannot.
The faith by which we live, then, is indeed a faith we share with our fathers. We have the same faith they had. It was their conviction that (1) God's word CAN be understood, and (2) that those who do NOT find literal truth there are wrong, and will go to hell. This view was clearly and unequivocally set forth by David Edwin Harrell in his address in the Forrest F. Reed Lectureship under the auspices of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society at Nashville, Tennessee, in the fall of 1966. (This lecture in full was published in the Gospel Guardian of January 2, 1969, under the caption, "I Am A Biblical Literalist.") Brother Harrell said, "Any man who believes that he can find literal truth in the Scriptures must also believe that those who do not find the same truth are wrong. What follows is that such people are sinful. The next logical conclusion is that they will go to hell." We suppose Brother Ketcherside would endorse this statement as it applies to Methodists and Presbyterians and Catholics, but would reject it if applied to Baptists and other "immersed believers."
This whole question is but a re-run of ancient history centering around Campbell's famous "Lunnenburg Letter" which appeared in the Millennial Harbinger in September 1837. We may have more to say about that later; but for the present let us simply emphasize that the 1970's will undoubtedly witness a polarization of the Churches of Christ between liberalism and conservatism. This is going to bring about one of those "forced options;" we cannot avoid it, we cannot evade it, we cannot escape it! We will either adhere to "our fathers' faith" in the pattern of enjoying fellowship only with those who are in substantial agreement with us as to the teachings of God's word; or else we will put our fellowship on the basis of 'inner feelings,' or some other criterion, and will move away from the traditional lines of the past. Every congregation and every individual Christian will sooner or later have to take one option or the other.
F. Y. T.