Sectarian Influences -- A Study In History
Before examining the Missionary Society and the "sponsoring church" method of spreading the gospel, it is necessary to briefly survey American church history for a background.
The devout Catholics, Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, sent Columbus not only to find new trade routes to India, but also to locate places for Catholic missions. This is proven by the fact that mission points were started in Venezuela, along the coast of South America, in Mexico and Florida, early in the sixteenth century, even before the Lutheran Reformation. The Protestant groups who dared to invade the New World (French Huguenots' in Venezuela and German Lutherans in Florida) were soon dispersed.
French Catholics entered the St. Lawrence River, went into the Great Lakes country, and on down the Mississippi River, establishing fur trade routes, and attempting to do missionary work among the Indians.
The Counter-Reformation and persecution by the Roman Catholics, the Wars of Religion raging between Catholic and Protestant armies in Germany, the intolerance of the English (Anglican) Church, severe winters and wide-spread famine, along with other causes, drove many Protestants out of the continent and the British Isles, and sent them looking for some place of refuge where they might have religious liberty. They were willing to brave the hardships of the wilderness and of savage Indians if they could only escape the horrors of Catholic dominated nations of Europe. They came to America and settled along the Atlantic Coast from about 1620 onward — approximately one century after the Catholics had come to this continent.
The trends in the religious sects parallel the national movements. At first the colonies were isolated and antagonistic the one to the other. The religious sects were likewise suspicious of one another, and generally hostile. Both political colonies and religious parties were still tied to Europe and looked to Europe for guidance in matters both political and religious. The intolerance of the Puritans (Congregationalists) in Massachusetts drove out Roger Williams who went to Providence, Rhode Island, and started a Baptist Church — the first on American soil. The Dutch Reformed people around New Amsterdam (now New York City) would not grant the Lutherans any religious rights. The Anglican Church in Virginia wanted no other religious sect there, and tried to prevent others coming in. William Penn in Pennsylvania accepted many of these excluded groups, such as the Mennonites and Quakers. Intense religious fervor was manifest in many places, and the great religious revivals by the Methodists under George Whitefield and the Congregationalists under Jonathan Edwards both preceded our American War of Revolution.
During that war the Protestants and Catholics, like the colonies, united in the common cause of freedom. A part of the Anglicans, along with Methodists, Quakers, and Moravians refused to fight either because they were sympathetic toward the British or because they were pacifists who because of conscientious scruples would not bear arms.
After independence had been won in the Revolutionary War, there was a great westward migration. People poured across the Alleghenies into Ohio and across the Blue Ridge mountains into Tennessee and Kentucky. To cope with the situation of rapidly scattering flocks and members, the sectarian churches formed Missionary Societies. Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, never having any scriptural objections to these man-made organizations all developed and perfected their missionary organizations during this period.
This was the period of "nationalization" for both religious sects and the newly liberated colonies. There began a centralization of power, a powerful movement to organize both political groups and religious groups on a national basis. This movement was not settled in a political sense until it was brought to a bloody decision on the battle-fields of the Civil War. It reached its culmination among the religious groups when national associations, conventions, or governing bodies finally emerged.
It was during these formative years that the Campbell's came to America. Due respect must be given to these men, for they came out of the darkness of sectarianism into the marvelous light of the New Testament church. But Alexander Campbell had a veil over his face as he studied the New Testament on some doctrinal issues. He was always sympathetic, for example, towards the associations of churches and the combining of those churches into missionary societies or associations. He joined two Baptist associations (Redstone and Mahoning), and was the first president of the American Christian Missionary Society. On such matters Campbell thought as the sectarians did, and was undoubtedly influenced by his environment, his associates, and the time in which he lived.
After the Civil War men arose, led primarily by David Lipscomb and Benjamin Franklin, who proved that the association of churches and missionary societies could not be justified by the teaching of God's word, and that the largest unit through which a Christian could work was the local church. Lipscomb was an untiring antagonist to the whole society movement, and there can be little doubt that his great influence saved hundreds of churches from being swept into the onrushing apostasy.
When Lipscomb died in 1917, many believed that the battle had been won for the truth. By this time the division was complete and fully recognized. A new denomination had emerged known as the "Disciples of Christ," and those who were weak and worldly had gone with the popular movement. It was felt that the church, greatly reduced in numbers, had nevertheless been cleansed and purified; and that henceforth there could be no further controversy or division over the troublesome questions of instrumental music and the missionary societies.
But alas! how mistaken that hope. For within a few short years of Lipscomb's death it became apparent that the same old battle was upon us again — this time in the guise of the "sponsoring church." In principle and in work the "sponsoring church" and the Missionary Society are the same. Both of them (1) take the oversight of both the evangelist and his converts; (2) receive their major support from other congregations and individuals; (3) send out evangelists FOR other local congregations; (4) feel free to use money contributed to them for the building of seminaries, hospitals, orphan homes, and other benevolent or educational agencies; (5) have a full staff of paid men and women who receive the money, send it to the work, oversee its expenditure, and make reports to the donors; (6) have centralized the work and have robbed the local congregation of its duty and its work.
Both the Missionary Society and the "sponsoring church" are organizations that set aside the scriptural plan for spreading the gospel and substitute their own plans. The extent the scriptures will allow is for a church to send direct to an evangelist or to a needy field. But to send through another church to an evangelist and to let that "sponsoring church" take the oversight is a step which should not be taken, for it is done so without the authority of the scriptures. We must constantly bear in mind that the method employed affects the results attained. Thus, Christian Church preachers during the first years of the Missionary Society preached the gospel plan of salvation as it is in the New Testament; but the method used in their evangelization caused them to become a sect, and sooner or later it was inevitable that they compromise on the thing preached as well as on the method of work. They became a sect, and left the door open for the introduction of many other innovations.
Are we facing the identical problem today?