Harper On Church Autonomy
In a recent article upon the subject of local church autonomy Brother E. R. Harper has attempted to show that the Herald of Truth program does not infringe upon local church autonomy and is therefore scriptural. Since most of his article is irrelevant to the issue I shall not deal with the entire article but only that part which I consider to be upon the issue.
In attempting to prove his point Brother Harper assumes that the famine recorded in Acts 11 was still in existence when the contribution made by the churches of Macedonia and Achaia was being made, the record of which we find in 1 Corinthians 16 and 2 Corinthians 8-9. This assumption cannot be proved by the scriptures, but is really unimportant. This contribution is not parallel to the contributions being made to the Herald of Truth. This contribution was made by many churches and sent to one church to be spent by that one church in their own community to alleviate hunger and nakedness among some of the members of this one church. The Herald of Truth arrangement calls for many churches to send money to one church for them to use in preaching the gospel, by means of the radio and television, to the entire nation. Preaching the gospel to an entire nation is not the responsibility of one congregation to the exclusion of all others. Therefore it cannot properly be called "their work."
Now I want to examine Brother Harper's argument. He says that the churches of Macedonia and Corinth decided "if they could give," "how much to give," and "when to give," that this constituted "local autonomy." According to him each church decides `if they can give," `how much they will give" and "when they will give" to the Herald of Truth, and this does not violate local autonomy, and makes the arrangement scriptural. Let us try this test upon the missionary society. Each church is at liberty to determine "if they will give," "how much they will give" and "when they will give" to the missionary society. If these three items alone determine local autonomy the missionary society does not violate local autonomy and is therefore a scriptural arrangement. This is the only logical conclusion that can be obtained from Brother Harper's line of reasoning. Does he believe this? Perhaps that is the reason he prefers not to write on What Is Wrong With the Missionary Society. The elders of Highland have asserted that they know the meaning of local church autonomy. Is this their conception of it? According to this definition of church autonomy, a church could send money to one central church to do its radio work, to another to do its benevolent work, to another to do its evangelistic work, to another to do its construction work, to another to do its teaching work and when it gets through there will be nothing left for it to do but pay the bills.
Church autonomy is not mentioned in the scriptures but the principle is there. Each church is independent. Why have elders in every church if they may delegate all their work to another eldership? This idea of pooling resources and letting one congregation do the work for all the congregations in any field is not taught in the New Testament and is contrary to the spirit of it. The only organization mentioned in the New Testament is the local congregation. Each one is complete and equal to every other congregation. To elevate one above the others by delegating some work that belongs to all to this particular congregation violates this principle of equality. The very reason that other congregations contributed to the Jerusalem Church was that there might be equality in living standards between the Jerusalem Church and the ones helping her. (2 Cor. 8:14.) This certainly is not the situation concerning the Herald of Truth program. Some of the churches contributing to this program are not even able to have a decent program of teaching and preaching in their own church building.
We need to get back to the Bible and let each church do its own work. Every move in history that has been away from this principle has led to complete apostasy. Why does anyone think that it will be different if tried again?