The Real Menace Of Centralization
For years brethren have been battling the trend toward centralized authority and control in unscriptural types of congregational cooperation, in institutionalism and in societies of various types. It seems to me the usual approach is that of singling our specific institutions A special cooperative efforts and then showing some particular error involved in the activity of the thing under consideration. This I think is right and effective. Yet, I believe we often fail to get the real danger before people. What is the real danger? Forget the issues which now confront the brotherhood for a moment and look to Nashville, Tennessee for an example of what I desire to point out.
In and around Nashville there are scores of churches of Christ. In Nashville the dynamic attraction of the name David Lipscomb is attached to an institution of learning operated by brethren in which Christian doctrine and Christian living are emphasized. In Nashville the oldest weekly gospel paper is published and its name, Gospel Advocate, with its antiquity holds a charm with thousands. Well, what is wrong with all that? It is not a matter of what is wrong with it, it is a matter of what has gone wrong with it.
Preachers looking for job influence, financial support and favors turn to Nashville. Thousands of Christians seem to harbor sort of a "Holy City" outlook on the "Athens of the South." Many members, and some preachers in such areas as the Carolinas, and Kentuckians too, look to Nashville not only for financial help but for doctrinal and sometime even ecclesiastical aid. Men in and around Nashville take advantage of this situation, and in saying that I do not necessarily attack the character of the men. I am sure there is such a thing as honest and ignorant assumption of prestige, importance and authority. But I do attack the pernicious system, the ecclesiastical machine which has developed in Nashville, Tennessee. Prominent men with the college, with the paper, and with the larger churches can get their heads together and set policies and decide on perplexing problems, congregational or otherwise. Preachers, elders and other members seem to be quite willing to post confidence in the respectable and prominent citizens of the kingdom and questions of doctrine are settled by pressure cliques rather than by the Spirit of God. Matters which pertain to the business and deportment of the local church are influenced by the "aristocracy" and adjustments are made accordingly. All this is not a matter of formal hierarchal authority — it is not yet a matter of going up and down the ladder of human authority through red-tape tribunals and such like. It is a matter of a prominent few exercising thought control over thousands.
This influence spreads abroad. It is not localized. Hundreds of preachers and perhaps thousands of other members flow into Nashville to attend collage lectureships, or to imbibe the spirit of Nashville church prosperity, or to browse through the head office of the great Gospel Advocate. (Preachers can get their names listed in the "Preachers Who Called). Doctrinal matters, congregational affairs, and individual lives are influenced by the results of the propaganda machinery and the calculated moves of the "nobility" and of the ruling cliques.
The situation we have described is not necessarily limited to Nashville. It could very well develop in other places and maybe has. There is Austin, Texas; Abilene Texas; Lufkin and Dallas; Louisville, Kentucky — you name the city where the church is strong and where institutions of human origin flourish and where men of prominence are looked up to and you have named a place where centralized authority could exist. As for Nashville the situation is so obvious that everyone who can see where the real menace of centralized control is located. It matters not what the doctrinal, moral or congregational problem may be. Nashville with the powerful paper-college-nobility combine can influence a great segment of the brotherhood toward a dominant trend. And she does.
Across the nation human institutions, churches, preachers and elders exchange favors with the "central headquarters" of the brotherhood. Friendship coalitions are formed, alliances are made, and universal moral, doctrinal and congregational policies are established.
The only thing that will bring the individual Christian through this generation of difficulty unscathed by centralized influences, the only thing that has brought him through other generations of like dominance, is, adherence to this truth: All questions of doctrine, all matters of conduct, congregational or individual, must be settled by the word of the Spirit. See I Peter 4:11.
It is easy for members to shirk responsibility and to turn over teaching and "visiting" duties to the preacher, and to the elders. It is easy for preachers 'and elders to shy away from scrutinizing doctrinal positions; it seems easy to accept the interpretations of notables among us without close examination. Yes, it is easy to say, "A man preaching the gospel with such ability, one who has been at it for so long, one who has such a fine education and reputation must surely know what he is talking about." And then we condemn the idea of the infallibility of the pope!
Brother, Christianity is a system which demands that the individual work out his own salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). You cannot surrender your obligation to centralization and get away with it.
I am not condemning gospel papers, prominent preachers nor "Christian" educational and benevolent institutions — I am striking a lick at the apparent assumption of power, and the air of authority seen in present policies and character features of those things mentioned. And, I seek to warn against credulity and institutional or hero worship by individual Christians.
Look up brother, get your book out, and live by a "thus saith the Lord."