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[Note:\u00a0 <\/strong>This MS is available in larger font on our Longer Articles<\/strong>\u00a0page.]<\/span><\/p>\n Some time ago an announcement in the bulletin of a large (1,000+ member) West Texas \u201cChurch of Christ\u201d caught my eye. The church had planned a special summer series of Wednesday night lectures on the theme, \u201cMovement in Transition: A Vision for the Future.\u201d The accompanying description of the series stated:<\/span><\/p>\n According to many, our Restoration Movement is very much in the midst of a period of transition. Many of our churches are struggling with their identity, their mission, and their purpose. Scripture as well as church history teach us that we are only one generation away from apostasy.<\/span><\/p>\n While this description makes some factual observations, its wording also demonstrates a mentality that is both spiritually disastrous and that is all too common in the church nowadays. Since this situation is representative of what has happened (and is happening) in various locales, I deem it worthy of some critique and commentary.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur Restoration Movement\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n This phrase, our Restoration Movement<\/em>, if it is not sectarian, at least borders on being so. Some of the avant-garde liberals in the church today have even come up with an acronym\u2014ARM<\/em>\u2014to stand for \u201cAmerican Restoration Movement.\u201d This is the broad umbrella under which they tuck the ultra-liberal and modernistic Disciples of Christ Christian Churches and the less-liberal Independent Christian Churches\u2014and us, the churches of Christ. The two branches of the Christian Church denomination have digressed so far that they cannot seriously claim thirty-second cousinhood to those spiritual pioneers who began pleading for the restoration of primitive Christianity in the nineteenth century.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes, the liberals among us are making every effort to move us under that same umbrella with these denominations in their passion to convert the Lord\u2019s church into a mere denomination among denominations. ACU professor, Doug Foster, has for some time been a leader in such attempts. The Woodmont Hills Church, Nashville, Tennessee, financially supports the \u201cWorld Convention,\u201d which favors the union of all three groups mentioned above. The continuing \u201cUnity Forums\u201d are nothing more than glad-handing conventions designed to dissolve all barriers between these groups and \u201clove\u201d them all into one ARM lump. They are all willing to ignore all of the extreme doctrinal and practical diversity as inconsequential.<\/span><\/p>\n A great irony in all of this is that neither of the two denominations mentioned above (nor the liberals in the church) even believe in restoration. Some believe it is impossible, while others believe it is at least impractical, if not unnecessary. (\u201cWe don\u2019t need a first century church; we need a twenty-first century church.\u201d) Some believe both\u2014it is impossible and<\/strong> unnecessary. Yet they like to hold on to the term restoration<\/em> as if by just using the term they are thereby exempted from being restorers. Restoration Movement <\/em>seems to have almost become a mantra to these folk, none of whom have the least inkling or appreciation of its spiritual implications. In the same vein, the liberals who are determined to stay in the restored church seem determined to use the designation church of Christ<\/em>, all the while eschewing the Scriptural nature, worship, and work of the church. All such behavior is hypocrisy, duplicity, and deception gone to seed.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe Restoration Movement\u201d has apparently become the end itself with many. These folk are so dedicated to the historical phenomenon of \u201cThe Movement\u201d that they have abandoned any concern for faithfully preaching the Gospel\u2014the only means of restoring and\/or perpetuating the primitive church. We (as they claim<\/strong> to) admire and profit much from the work of faithful Gospel preachers of nineteenth century USA. However, their admiration of these men is not for the Truth and the plea they heralded, often at great sacrifice, but for the \u201chistorical movement\u201d these men spawned.<\/span><\/p>\n Their aim is to restore their warped concept of \u201cThe Restoration Movement,\u201d rather than the church of the Lord. These liberals salivate over their own mere historical name-association<\/strong> with the efforts of the pioneers, rejecting the Truth they taught. For example, the Disciples are proud to be called \u201cCampbellites,\u201d claiming A. Campbell as the founder of their denomination. (Some of \u201cour\u201d liberals have come very close to making this same sad affirmation about the church, if they have not already done so.) Such an attitude actually denies the very premise of the plea for restoration the pioneer preachers uttered\u2014undenominational Christianity<\/strong>, which struck\u2014and strikes\u2014at the very heart of the modern ARM sectarianism.<\/span><\/p>\n Contrariwise, our interest must not be in mere historical aspects of the Campbells, Stone, Smith, McGarvey, Lipscomb, and others (though their lives and work are fascinating history), but in the Truth they preached that resulted in restoring the church of Christ. Only as we preach that same Truth from the same Book can we honestly claim affinity with their efforts. Even so, our real agreement is not with that for which they stood, per se, but with the message they preached because, and in so far as, it was the message of the New Testament.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n A Movement \u201cin Transition\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The article quoted above observes that \u201cour Restoration Movement is\u2026in\u2026transition\u201d and that \u201cour churches are struggling with their identity, their mission, and their purpose.\u201d This statement reflects an indisputable fact, and little wonder that this is so. The bulletin in which this statement appeared was published by a congregation that has for over three decades been moving steadily leftward in doctrine and practice. The preachers and preaching it has tolerated (yea, encouraged and demanded) would have created an \u201cidentity crisis\u201d for any body of people that claims to be a church of Christ. The direction these folk have so long pursued constitutes denial of the Scriptural identity, mission, and purpose the Lord sets forth for His church. For years there has been little more to identify this religious body as a \u201cChurch of Christ\u201d than the sign in front of the building.<\/span><\/p>\n Now another great irony: Among the five named speakers for this series of lectures to speak on the \u201cidentity crisis\u201d in various congregations, at least three of them were men who have helped precipitate this very crisis by their well-known soft and indistinct doctrinal posture for several years. The other two on the program had hardly distinguished themselves as pillars of doctrinal strength. At least the five men named ought to know something about these problems, because their part in causing them. To invite such men to address problems relating to \u201ctransitions\u201d and \u201cidentity crises\u201d in the church is comparable to inviting the wolves into the henhouse to help nurse the sick chickens back to health.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOne Generation\u2026from Apostasy\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n That the church is only one generation away from apostasy is hardly a new revelation, nor is it arguable. But here is perhaps the most ironic irony\u2014that an apostate church would feign concern that the church is one generation away from apostasy! This church is actually a grand demonstration of this apostasy adage. To fully appreciate this irony, consider the fact that over thirty years ago:<\/span><\/p>\n The youngsters in this congregation, even some years before the lectures were conducted, hardly had a chance to escape apostasy unless they acquired from some other source sufficient wisdom and respect for the Bible to rebel against what they had been taught. Their parents, elders, and most of their preachers were already firmly committed to that course.<\/span><\/p>\n The only thing that might not be altogether true in the apostasy proverb is the only one generation time element. Events of recent years have demonstrated that apostasy can occur much more rapidly. Sometimes one man in a leadership position (preacher, elders, wealthy member) who goes astray can have sufficient influence to corrupt a once-faithful congregation in only a few months\u2019 time.<\/span><\/p>\n Let us ever be concerned with the principle<\/strong> of restoration and with perpetuating and protecting the restored New Testament church and scheme of redemption. While admiring the men who blazed the trails at great cost to call men back to the church of the Bible almost two centuries ago, let us ever remember that they were mere men and that our faith is not in them or in a \u201cmovement.\u201d Our faith must be in the Master and the message they preached to the best of their abilities. Let us follow those good men as, and only as, they followed the Christ, as Paul instructed concerning his own words and deeds (1 Cor. 11:1).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [Note: <\/strong>I wrote this MS, and it originally appeared as an \u201cEditorial Perspective\u201d in the August 2003 issue of The Gospel Journal, <\/em>a 36-page monthly of which I was editor at the time.]<\/span><\/p>\n Attribution: <\/strong>Printed from TheScripturecache.com<\/em>, owned and administered by Dub McClish.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Views: 0[Note:\u00a0 This MS is available in larger font on our Longer Articles\u00a0page.] Some time ago an announcement in the bulletin of a large (1,000+ member) West Texas \u201cChurch of Christ\u201d caught my eye. The church had planned a special summer series of Wednesday night…<\/p>\n\n