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[Note: <\/strong>This MS is available in larger font on our Manuscripts<\/strong> page.]<\/span><\/p>\n Introduction<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n History reveals that men are susceptible to extremes in almost every arena of thought and behavior. This is no more clearly demonstrable than in the field of religion. A classic illustration is seen in the extreme of salvation by meritorious works <\/em>advocated for centuries by Roman Catholicism and its opposite extreme of salvation by faith only <\/em>advocated by the Reformers since the sixteenth century. Further, extremes sometimes (but not always) beget extremes. The works-only <\/em>system of the Roman Church certainly begat the faith-only <\/em>system of Luther and the Reformers. The Lord\u2019s church has been plagued by extremes from time to time. Every extreme position among brethren from the day of the apostles to the present revolves around the two opposite extremes, generally designated \u201cliberalism\u201d and \u201canti-ism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Defining and Illustrating Liberalism <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I am using the term liberalism <\/em>to refer to a certain attitude and approach to religion that is unwilling to be as strict and definitive as God is in His Word. It is called \u201cliberalism\u201d due to its misplaced \u201cgenerosity\u201d in \u201cgiving away\u201d that which it does not possess. It refuses to bind things that God has bound. This approach treats matters of Scriptural obligation as if they were matters of mere option. Those who are liberal in this sense tend to rely on their emotions and subjective opinions to make presumptions on the grace and mercy of God rather than strictly adhering to the Law of Christ. For example, such an one has said, \u201cThere are sincere, knowledgeable, devout Christians scattered among all the various denominations.\u201d This, in spite of the fact that the New Testament explicitly and implicitly teaches that there is only one church which Christ built, for which He died, to which He adds those who are saved, and which He will save when He comes again (Eph. 4:4; Mat. 16:18; Acts 20:28; 2:41, 47; Eph. 5:23).1<\/sup> Before going further, I need to distinguish between a \u201cliberal\u201d in the sense that I have just defined him, and a \u201cmodernist.\u201d While these two terms have some things in common, they are not synonymous. All modernists are liberals, but not all liberals are modernists. The liberal is willing to take some liberties with the Word of God but may still profess to maintain at least some confidence in and respect for some Biblical fundamentals (e.g., inspiration of Scripture, the virgin birth of Christ, Biblical miracles, resurrection of Christ, et al.). The modernist is basically an infidel; he no longer holds to such fundamentals. To him Christianity is but one of many \u201cworld religions,\u201d all of which are human in origin, and \u201ctruth\u201d is not objective, but subjective, and therefore relative and mutable. In his view the Bible is a product of literary evolution over which he sits in judgment as merely an interesting curiosity piece.<\/span><\/p>\n Clear illustrations of the distinction between liberals and modernists are apparent in those brethren in the nineteenth century who insisted on imposing instrumental music and the missionary society upon the church. All of them were liberals in desiring to have these additions, which the Scriptures did (and do) not authorize. However, some of them proved themselves to be modernists as well, having come under the skeptical influence of the German rationalists of their time. When the \u201cmere\u201d liberals could not reform their modernist brethren, they separated from them and continue in that separation to the present. The liberals became (and are) the Independent Christian Church (hereafter referred to as the ICC) and the modernists became (and are) the Disciples of Christ Christian Church. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n By these definitions one can observe that all modernists are liberals, but not all liberals are modernists\u2014at least, not to begin with. However, the seeds of modernism are most certainly in the liberal mind-set; the liberal is usually progressive in his liberalism<\/strong>. When one adopts the liberal approach to religion, he has abandoned the authority of Scripture, and, free of its restraints, usually moves farther and farther from Truth and righteousness.<\/span><\/p>\n Defining and Illustrating Anti-Ism <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n I am using anti-ism <\/em>to refer to the disposition to be more strict than the Law of God. It is called \u201canti-ism\u201d because those of this disposition generally occupy a negative position. It is characteristically against or opposed to certain things that God allows. The \u201canti\u201d frame of mind takes matters of judgment and option and binds them as matters of Scriptural law and obligation. For example, various ones among us from time to time have tried to bind the listing of the acts of worship in Acts 2:42 as an invariable pattern for the order of the acts of worship. Since the \u201canti\u201d characteristically forbids what God allows, he thereby makes laws where God has made none. For this reason, anti-ism is sometimes referred to as \u201clegalism.\u201d Thus, the private scruples of the \u201canti,\u201d rather than the actual dictates of the Law of Christ, become the standard of doctrine and behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n With but few exceptions those who have adopted the \u201canti\u201d mind-set in religion believe strongly in the verbal inspiration of the Bible and its authority. However, their mistake is in making their opinions and preferences as authoritative as the Scriptures themselves. Just as the liberal is broader than God, the anti is narrower than God in approaching the Bible and religion.<\/span><\/p>\n And, just as the liberal is progressive, ever embracing more and more liberal concepts, so those of the anti <\/em>persuasion tend to draw ever narrower their boundaries of doctrine and those whom they can fellowship (e.g., some who, upon first adopting anti views, only opposed church support of orphan homes, next evolved to legislate against any congregational help for a non-Christian, and finally moved to the point that a church could not give one penny to provide milk for a starving baby).<\/span><\/p>\n I do not employ liberal <\/em>and anti <\/em>with any unkind, disrespectful, or malevolent intent, but simply as terms of simplifying identification in order for the reader to understand what I mean by them throughout the remainder of this Manuscript.<\/span><\/p>\n A Brief History of Some Liberal and Anti Movements<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Although liberalism <\/em>appears before anti-ism <\/em>in the wording of our title, I have chosen to discuss them in reverse order because anti-ism arose and became widespread among us in recent times before the rise of pervasive liberalism, and anti-ism has been largely isolated and stabilized, while liberalism is still on the rise.<\/span><\/p>\n Historical Notes on Anti-ism<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The element of anti-ism is clearly identifiable in the Bible. The scribes and Pharisees are sometimes called \u201cfirst century antis\u201d with good reason. They ever sought to bind upon others as law their own traditions and opinions, which God had not bound (Mat. 9:11\u201313; 12:10\u201312; 15:2; et al.). Clearly, the Judaizing teachers of the early years of the church were antis in their contentions. They taught: \u201cExcept ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved\u201d (Acts 15:1). However, God had not bound circumcision as a religious act or a condition of covenant privilege under the new covenant (v. 24). Therefore, those who were binding it were troublesome and were attempting to subvert the brethren by binding this law that God had not bound.<\/span><\/p>\n Even the apostle Peter was caught up in the spirit of anti-ism as demonstrated by his behavior in Antioch (Gal. 2:11\u201314). The Gospel was for Gentile and Jew without respect of persons by God (Acts 10:34\u201335), but Peter refused to eat with Gentile brethren and influenced others to do the same. He was refusing those whom God had accepted, thus binding where God had not bound. Diotrephes was guilty of the same anti error (3 John 9\u201310). Paul warned of a coming apostasy in which men would forbid others to marry and to eat meat (1 Tim. 4:3). Since these were things that God allowed (Heb. 13:4; 1 Tim. 4:3\u20134), they were making laws that God had not made. Paul labeled those teachers as hypocritical liars and their doctrines as \u201cdoctrines of demons\u201d (vv. 1\u20132). They were \u201cantis\u201d in the truest sense.<\/span><\/p>\n In more modern times the spirit of anti-ism has demonstrated itself in varied issues. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century a great amount of opposition among brethren had arisen to \u201cSunday Schools.\u201d This carried over into the early part of the twentieth century and was an issue of major controversy till about 1930. Gunter College (Gunter, TX), founded in 1903, was doomed from the beginning because its board passed a resolution which labeled \u201cSunday Schools,\u201d uninspired literature, and women teachers as unscriptural. It died for lack of support in 1928. To a great degree, the same brethren who opposed individual Bible classes, printed Bible literature, and women teaching others at all (even children or other women) in the church building, also attempted to forbid the church to use individual cups for the Lord\u2019s Supper (\u201cone-cuppers\u201d). They eventually divided among themselves with some of them opposing classes while allowing separate cups and others opposing both classes and cups. Several public debates, articles in brotherhood journals, and sermons saved the church from domination by these anti positions by exposing their fallacies.<\/span><\/p>\n In the 1940s and 1950s the same sort of spirit caused some brethren to oppose \u201clocated\u201d preachers (aka the mutual ministry <\/em>doctrine) and colleges founded by brethren primarily to teach the Bible. Among those prominent in advocating these anti issues were W. Carl Ketcherside and Leroy Garrett, who, in the 1960s, radically changed directions and became as liberal as they had formerly been anti.<\/span><\/p>\n In the early 1950s some brethren began voicing their opposition to churches supporting orphan homes and congregational cooperation in preaching the Gospel. Two of the principal advocates of these anti views were Roy E. Cogdill and Fanning Yater Tant. They strongly pushed their views, especially through the pages of The Gospel Guardian<\/em>. Numerous debates were conducted on these issues, some of the most crucial of which were those between W.L. Totty and Charles Holt (1954), E.R. Harper and Yater Tant (1955, 1956), Guy N. Woods and W. Curtis Porter (1956), Guy N. Woods and Roy E. Cogdill (1957), and G.K. Wallace and Charles Holt (1959). Roy C. Deaver and Thomas B. Warren also wrote, debated, and spoke extensively against this anti movement and thus helped greatly to stem the tide that seriously threatened to engulf the church.2<\/sup> These latter anti movements have spawned additional anti positions which oppose eating a physical meal in church buildings and, as earlier mentioned, giving even a penny to anyone who is not a Christian (commonly referred to as the saints-only <\/em>doctrine).<\/span><\/p>\n The anti-Bible class, anti-Bible literature, anti-women teacher, anti-located preacher, anti-multiple cups, and anti-Bible college positions were generally recognized as extreme through the efforts of stalwart men who exposed their fallacies. They therefore captured only a relatively small percentage of congregations and had largely run their course by the 1940s. However, the anti-cooperation and anti-orphan home contention had a far more powerful effect, in spite of the valiant effort of several good men. Many preachers aligned themselves with it and at least a few hundred congregations were captured by it. Florida Christian College in Tampa, Florida, came under the influence of this faction and it continues in this alignment as Florida College. While these anti brethren continue to propagate their doctrine, refusing to fellowship those who will not bow to their personal scruples, they have not made any major gains in the past few decades.<\/span><\/p>\n All of the anti <\/em>movements make the same basic arguments and the same basic mistakes in Biblical interpretation:<\/span><\/p>\n As described above, the anti-cooperation and anti-orphan home contentions posed a grave danger to the church for several years. While we should not relax our vigilance against those errors, the threat with the possibility of far more disastrous consequences from the mid- 1960s to the present has been and is liberalism, as previously defined.<\/span><\/p>\n Historical Notes on Liberalism <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n As defined above, liberalism is evident in many persons described in the Bible. All of those who thought they could substitute what pleased them in place of what God specified were liberals. This includes the likes of Cain (Gen. 4), Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10), Saul (1 Sam. 15), and David (1 Chr. 13, 15).<\/span><\/p>\n In more modern times, in the middle part of the nineteenth century some brethren began to insist upon using mechanical instruments of music in worship and a missionary society in evangelism. In order to do so they had to adopt a loose and liberal view toward Scriptural authority. They insisted on their right to have these things on the basis that the Scriptures did not specifically forbid them. These brethren were so determined to have their unauthorized innovations that they would stop at nothing, even a general division in the church, which was recognized in 1906 by the federal census. Those who were so wedded to the instrument and the society that they split off from the church then split into two denominations by 1926. One of these became the Disciples of Christ Christian Church<\/strong>, which now revels in its ultra-liberal denominational status and its radical modernistic theology. It claims Alexander Campbell as its founder and ridicules the very concept of restoring New Testament Christianity. The other is the Independent Christian Church<\/strong>, sometimes called the \u201cConservative Christian Church.\u201d However, it is \u201dconservative\u201d only in comparison with the Disciples of Christ, not with the New Testament church. It has continued to add numerous innovations to its doctrine and practice in the course of its existence. When the devastating split occurred, it is estimated that eighty-six percent of the church was captured by the liberal element. This meant that faithful brethren in most places had their buildings and congregations ruthlessly seized from them and had to start all over. However, now free of having to expend so much energy and expense in fighting the liberals, faithful brethren could turn all of their attention to evangelism. In only fifty years, the church of Christ would far outgrow the liberal elements that had departed from them and within five decades would become the fastest growing religious body in America for a few years.<\/span><\/p>\n While the church was riding the crest of this wave of growth in the late 1950s and early1960s some of the \u201cmainline\u201d denominations (e.g., Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, et al.) were being overwhelmed with modernism. They were \u201csitting ducks\u201d for modernism because they had long been enslaved to liberal theology and hermeneutics, which had produced liberal doctrine and practice. These religious bodies, captured almost totally by modernism, no longer stand for anything but super tolerance of everything and everybody. The Southern Baptist Church began to feel the same pressures in the 1970s and those in that denomination who still claim to believe in the inspiration and authority of the Bible are in a fight-to-the-finish struggle with liberals and modernists for control. It threatens to split the Baptists right down the middle.<\/span><\/p>\n It was predictable that sooner or later these religious currents would affect the Lord\u2019s church. There had been isolated cases of liberalism all through the years, but they were just that. Even to the early 1960s, when a liberal preacher or professor was discovered he was generally dismissed and deprived of a pulpit or classroom till he repented. Liberalism would soon prove to be not so isolated and unpopular. One of the early indications of a more widespread influence of liberalism among us was the accusation from some brethren in the early 1960s that preachers had over-emphasized the plan of salvation to the neglect of Christ Himself. The Man or the Plan <\/em>issue, as it came to be popularly styled, was thoroughly discussed in the papers. This was an early attempt to shift our emphasis away from sound doctrine, which doubtless influenced some in that very direction.<\/span><\/p>\n More and more promising young men who attended colleges operated by brethren to prepare to preach were being encouraged by their professors to immediately pursue graduate and post-graduate degrees in sectarian schools, generally staffed with modernistic professors. As they did so, they were coming back to teach in our colleges and preach in our pulpits, even though, as time would prove, many of them had embraced liberal concepts, while some of them had lost their faith altogether. By the late 1960s liberal elements were beginning to surface rapidly. Generally, they were calling for a \u201crestructuring\u201d of the church and had the disposition of mind to challenge every precept, practice, and principle of New Testament Christianity.<\/span><\/p>\n Mission Magazine<\/em>, a monthly journal that first appeared in July 1967, played a leading role in this effort. Until its demise about twenty years later it would carry the banner of liberalism (at times evincing tinges of modernism) for the young liberals among us. It was attacking the concept of a Biblical pattern for the church at least as early as January 1973. About the time this magazine was introduced, another group of young liberals began the Campus Evangelism <\/strong>program with its annual seminars, heavily stacked with some of the most liberal preachers and professors available. The outcry over its influence became so great from parents and other sound brethren that the program folded in 1970. Chuck Lucas picked up the pieces and developed it into the Crossroads cult, which, in turn, spawned the Boston cult. In this same period, Reuel Lemmons, editor of The Firm Foundation<\/em>, was increasingly defending apostates such as Pat Boone and Don Finto and pushing his elders-have-no- authority <\/em>hobby. Also, in the late 1960s, The Christian Chronicle <\/em>came under extremely liberal influence. Sweet Publishing Company began publishing books from some of the most liberal men among us, along with questionable Bible school material.<\/span><\/p>\n By the early 1970s the liberal \u201csnowball\u201d had begun to pick up momentum. Congregations controlled by liberal elements were increasingly easy to find. To be liberal was now becoming more and more accepted and those who had for a long time been \u201dcloset liberals\u201d began coming out into the open. It became increasingly possible for a liberal preacher or professor not only to find a place to preach or teach, but to hold on to his position and even be honored. The influential Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas, and the Herald of Truth radio and television programs came under strong and growing criticism for their liberal leanings. I speak here of criticisms totally apart from the objections of anti<\/em> brethren of 20years previous. These outcries were from brethren who defended the Scriptural right of the Highland Church to operate Herald of Truth, but who increasingly distrusted the doctrinal soundness of at least some of the program\u2019s speakers. This flak culminated in a marathon meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1973, attended by over two hundred preachers and numerous representatives of Highland and Herald of Truth. The meeting only intensified the fears of concerned brethren.<\/span><\/p>\n Institutions of higher learning were a fertile breeding-ground for the liberalism of the nineteenth century. They are repeating this dubious function in this century. Pepperdine University has long been a bastion of liberalism on the West Coast, even in the 1950s. The other colleges were generally perceived as conservative, with some more so than others, until the 1970s. With the retirement of Don Morris and the installment of John Stevens as president of Abilene Christian College in1970, a spirit of unprecedented tolerance soon became observable. The drift to the left in Abilene was clearly underway, hand-in-hand with that of the Highland congregation. The Bible department and the lectureship gradually began to be more and more staffed with men of \u201cuncertain sounds.\u201d With succeeding administrations, the drift has become an open and obvious shift.<\/span><\/p>\n Expressions of concern in 1986 over the documented teaching in science classes of theistic evolution and that Genesis 1 is a \u201cmyth\u201d were met with denial of the facts and defense of the teachers involved.3<\/sup> Abilene Christian University (as it was re-named) has become one of the foremost proponents and encouragers of liberalism through: (1) outrageously heretical statements, both orally and in writing, by various men on the faculty of the Bible College and the president himself, (2) books published by the ACU Press and authored by ACU professors, (3) the almost exclusive use of liberal speakers on their lectureships, workshops, and seminars in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1992 the president of ACU defended the appointment of a Methodist preacher, enrolled as a student at ACU, as editor of the school paper. Lamentably, several other colleges and universities supported by the Lord\u2019s people are rapidly following the ecumenical, \u201cunity-in-diversity\u201d lead of ACU.<\/span><\/p>\n A series of \u201cscholars\u2019 conferences\u201d was begun in in the late 1980s, hosted by a different one of \u201cour\u201d colleges or universities each year. These have encouraged and produced some of the most liberal and anti-Biblical declarations and proposals imaginable. Certainly, liberalism has found a mighty ally in the schools.<\/span><\/p>\n In 1983, Rubel Shelly shocked the brotherhood by declaring his newfound ecumenism, as quoted earlier, that he believed there were faithful Christians among all the denominations. This represented a total reversal of his previous strong stance in defense of the Truth. He soon lent his considerable influence in Nashville, Tennessee, to the beginning of a series of \u201cunity forums\u201d with the Independent Christian Church. The first one, styled a \u201cRestoration Summit Meeting,\u201d was held in 1984. These have continued at least annually to the present and have involved only a very few brethren known for their doctrinal soundness as speaking participants. In spite of the hundreds of hours spent in these discussions the ICC people have adamantly said they are not about to give up instrumental music in worship. Meanwhile, many of our soft and \u201cirenic\u201d brethren who have been participating are now urging that we treat the use of instruments as merely a matter of opinion or conscience, rather than one involving Scriptural authority. The unity forums have definitely brought many more liberals out into the open and have emboldened others who were already of a liberal spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n Mission Magazine <\/em>was but a precursor of even more liberal journals to come. When William Cline and Buster Dobbs purchased The Firm Foundation <\/em>from the Showalter family in 1983, Reuel Lemmons was relieved as editor and the paper was restored to a Scripturally sound emphasis and direction. Within a year Lemmons had found backing for a new journal where he could have even greater freedom to propagate his liberalism\u2014Image Magazine<\/em>. In 1992 Rubel Shelly was instrumental in beginning an even more liberal journal, which he named Wineskins<\/em>. The Christian Chronicle<\/em>, which practically died in the 1970s, was revived by Oklahoma Christian University in the 1980s. It has become a major \u201cunity-in-diversity\u201d organ under Howard Norton, editor and chairman of the Bible College at OCU. A spate of books from liberal brethren, many of them professors in our universities, has flowed from the press since the 1980s, and their central theme is one: The church must make whatever changes are necessary to attract modern society. The quest for Scriptural authority for their changes has been all but completely abandoned. Publications have played a major role in leading many astray.<\/span><\/p>\n Liberalism has also received great impetus from various workshops, seminars, and lecture programs. The Campus Evangelism Seminars in the late 1960s were the pioneers of liberal efforts of this sort. Chuck Lucas continued these in the Florida Evangelism Seminars into the 1970s. Also, in the 1970s ACU began more and more to feature men recognized for their doctrinal softness and unsoundness on its annual lectureship. In 1978 the first Tulsa Soul- Winning Workshop was conducted. By 1980 the liberal doctrinal agenda of this annual event was clearly evident. From year to year it has featured some of the most liberal and denominationally minded men among us and it remains a major rallying point for such. In1989 three of the largest and most liberal churches in and around Nashville, Tennessee (Woodmont Hills, Madison, Antioch), planned the first \u201cNashville Jubilee,\u201d which has become another hotbed of avant-garde doctrine and practice. When the lectureships of some of our higher institutions of learning, as already mentioned, are added to these efforts, they constitute a powerful force for the \u201cgospel of change\u201d\u2014unauthorized change\u2014in matters legislated by the Son of God.<\/span><\/p>\n Seven Major Thrusts Against the Bible and the Church by the Liberal Change Agents<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n While anti-ism is not dead by any means and likely never will be, I repeat for the sake of\u00a0<\/span>emphasis, the far more serious threat to the church of Christ during this last quarter of the twentieth century and as we anticipate the twenty-first century is definitely liberalism. While anti-ism presses optional and incidental elements of the faith into law, it at least, in the main, is concerned about Scriptural authority, although it errs in its attempts to ascertain it. However,<\/span><\/p>\n the frightful thing about liberalism is that it cuts loose from the Scriptures and their authority all who are ensnared by it. Once liberalism is embraced there is no limit, no stopping place in religion, because there is no standard.<\/span><\/p>\n Dispelling Some Myths<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Did the Opponents of Anti-ism Beget Liberalism? <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Those who have become ensnared in anti-ism sometimes level the charge that the liberalism of today is the natural outgrowth of the things they opposed. (Some of them say that today\u2019s rampant liberalism is what they have opposed all along.) They further charge that those of us who fought (and continue to fight) their anti-ism are responsible for today\u2019s liberalism\u2014 that we in fact defended it and created an atmosphere conducive to it. They like to say, \u201cSee there, you are just reaping the fruits of your defense of church cooperation and support of homes. If you had just stood with us against those things you would not be plagued with liberalism as you are now.\u201d This is an idle charge at best and an absolute lie at worst. The anti- Bible class brethren made this charge against those who fought them on that issue. The anti-individual cups brethren made the same charge against those who fought them on their contention. The anti-cooperation and anti-orphan home brethren have repeatedly made such statements. The liberalism that presently plagues the church would have come forth even if many of us had not stood up to the forces of anti-ism, due to the several factors already discussed that combined at about the same time to produce it. In fact, since it is arguable that one of those factors that produced (or at least accelerated) the liberal cause was anti-ism, it would therefore follow that if more of us had joined the anti <\/em>faction instead of opposing it, it would have hastened the rise of liberalism!<\/span><\/p>\n Did we create liberalism by defending the Scriptural right of congregations to cooperate with one another in evangelism and to support homes for the homeless out of the church treasury? Verily not! Those of us who defended those Scriptural options were neither defending nor encouraging any liberalism whatsoever. None of those who publicly debated the anti <\/em>brethren on these issues ever suggested ignoring or going beyond the Scriptures. Quite the contrary! The entire case for the right of congregations to engage in these cooperative and benevolent works\u2014which the antis forbade\u2014was rooted firmly in the teaching of the New Testament. <\/strong>The very fact that we are now as strongly opposing the liberalism that has engulfed some of these efforts (e.g., the Highland Church in Abilene, TX, and the Herald of Truth programs) as we once defended their Scriptural authority to engage n these evangelistic efforts is proof that we have no sympathy for liberalism whatsoever\u2014and that we did not create it. No, the elders of the Highland Church did not drift into liberalism because sound brethren upheld the Scriptural right of congregations to cooperate in preaching the Gospel on the Herald of Truth radio and television programs. They drifted into liberalism because they lost respect for the authority of the Word of God!<\/span><\/p>\n Our anti brethren, unable to distinguish between the things that God allows us to do in matters of judgment and their own private opinions, which they bind as Divine law, mistakenly aver that those who do not subscribe to their private judgments are liberals. They thus think they are fighting liberalism when they preach against eating on church property or one congregation sending money to another congregation to help in preaching the Gospel. If they really want to fight liberalism, let them cease calling those \u201dliberal\u201d who do not bow to their personal opinions, and join those of us who are on the firing line against the actual liberalism that is overwhelming so many in the church!<\/span><\/p>\n Did Liberalism Beget Anti-ism? <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n No, not unless the younger begets the older. I have shown that modern anti-ism arose as a reaction to what was incorrectly <\/strong>perceived to be liberalism (i.e., Scriptural cooperation of congregations in evangelism and congregational support of homes for the homeless). The liberal mind-set with which we are now having to deal was found only in exceptional and isolated cases in the hey-day of the most recent attempt by antis to take over the church, and it was exposed and contained. If either of these extremes begat the other, it is far more likely (as previously noted) that the anti-ism of the 1950s and 1960s pushed some brethren toward liberalism. To put it another way, some were so repulsed by not only the doctrine of anti-ism, but by the generally vitriolic spirit of its advocates, that in running away from it they ran too far in the other direction. Of course, I am not at all saying that this is the only or even the main cause of the present poisonous and pervasive liberalism that has fastened itself on the church. As I indicated in the historical notes above, there were several factors involved.<\/span><\/p>\n What Is the Solution to These Extremes?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Is anti-ism the correct response to liberalism? Is liberalism the correct response to anti- ism? We may as well ask if Nazism is the correct response to Marxism or vice versa! Absolutely not! We do not correct one extreme by adopting another. When one lets his automobile veer off the road on one side it is not only improper, but dangerous, to steer completely across the road and veer off to the other side as a corrective measure. On either side are dangerous ditches; on the road is where we want to travel, not in the ditches.<\/span><\/p>\n When we are speaking of extreme positions, as in the case before us, the Truth is always the middle ground. The Lord set forth this very ground as the only ground we can follow to please Him when He gave the apostolic promise and charge: \u201cAnd whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven\u201d (Mat. 16:19; 18:18). The English phrases \u201cshall be bound\u201d and \u201cshall be loosed\u201d are the translation of perfect tense Greek participles. The literal meaning of them is \u201cshall have already been bound\u201d and \u201cshall have already been loosed.\u201d This is a powerful promise to the apostles that they would not be able to teach or preach anything that had not already been settled in Heaven\u2014a promise of inerrancy in their doctrine. The means by which they would do so would be by the unfailing guidance of the Holy Spirit the Christ would send to them (John 14:26; 15:26\u201327; 16:13).<\/span><\/p>\n There is something in this promise even more pertinent to the subject of this chapter. All of the \u201cbinding\u201d and \u201cloosing\u201d has already been done! <\/strong>To \u201cbind\u201d refers to those things that are obligatory, whether in matters required or forbidden. To \u201cloose\u201d refers to those things which the Lord has declared to be optional and we therefore have the freedom to do if we choose. The binding and loosing in spiritual matters had already been done in Heaven before the Lord set foot on earth (Eph. 3:9\u201311; 1 Pet. 1:18\u201320; et al.). The Lord, through what He taught personally while on earth and through what He would teach (and has taught) through His apostles and other New Testament prophets, has revealed all of the binding and loosing that pertains to us. No man has any right to bind what God has not bound<\/strong>\u2014this is what the anti does. Neither does any man have the right to loose what God has bound<\/strong>\u2014this is what the liberal does. The only road of spiritual sense and safety is to limit ourselves to what the New Testament authorizes and nothing more.<\/span><\/p>\n John also pointed us to the only safe and proper course: \u201cWhosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son\u201d (2 John 9). This passage particularly applies to the mind-set of the liberal.10<\/sup> The great flaw of the liberal is his determination to run ahead of, to go beyond what the Word authorizes him to do. If the liberal has any sensitivity at all to the Truth, he should shudder at his spiritual condition\u2014he\/she \u201chath not God\u201d<\/strong>! This is to be without hope, just as Paul described the Ephesians before they heard and obeyed the Gospel: \u201chaving no hope and without God in the world\u201d (Eph. 2:12). If one desires to have fellowship with both the Father and the Son he must abide in the teaching. This simply means doing only what the Word of God authorizes us to do. Only in this course does one have hope because only in this course does he have fellowship with God and His Son.<\/span><\/p>\n Paul wrote to the Colossians of the necessity of abiding in the Gospel Truth: \u201cAnd whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him\u201d (Col. 3:17). The phrase, in the name of<\/em>, is used almost as a formula in the New Testament to refer to the authority of the one named, in this case, Jesus the Lord. Peter used it in precisely the same way on Pentecost when he said, \u201cRepent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins\u201d (Acts 2:38; cf. 3:6; 4:10, 18; 5:40; 9:27; 10:48; 1 Cor. 5:4; 2 The. 3:6; et al.). The passage in Colossians clearly demands that both our words and deeds be measured by the standard of Christ\u2019s authority\u2014the New Testament. This means that no man has the right to erect a standard narrower or smaller than His, which every anti does. It also means that no man has the right to erect a standard broader or larger than His, which every liberal does.<\/span><\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Anti-ism is not the antidote for liberalism. Liberalism is not the antidote for anti-ism. The Truth lies between these two extremes and is the only God-approved antidote for both. It is not anti- ism nor liberalism, nor any other \u201dism,\u201d but the Truth of the teaching of Christ in the New Testament that will make (and keep) us free (John 8:32).<\/span><\/p>\n Endnotes<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n [Note: <\/strong>I wrote this MS for and presented a digest of it orally at the Houston College of the Bible Lectures, hosted by the Spring, TX, Church of Christ, June 19\u201322, 1994. It was published in the book of the lectures, \n
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