This booklet exists because a division took place in the churches of Christ more than seventy years ago, and most of the people who live with its consequences today have never had the division fairly explained to them.
The division became hard in the 1950s. By about 1970 it was effectively complete. Congregations had separated; fellowship had been broken; families and friendships had been strained or cut. The generation that fought the division on both sides is now largely gone. The generation after them is fewer in number. And the members of the churches of Christ today — institutional and non-institutional alike — are mostly people who were not born when the separation happened. What most of them know about it, they have been taught by the side that raised them. They have rarely read the other side in the other side’s own words. They have rarely been shown a fair statement of the question that was actually in dispute. They have often been given labels instead of arguments.
That is what this booklet is for. It is a short, patient attempt to do what ought to have been done more often over the last half century: to lay out the division honestly, state both positions in the way their best advocates would state them, walk through the relevant Scriptures, and let the text speak. The thesis of the whole work is stated plainly and is meant to hold the writer to his own standard: a position must stand or fall based on what the Scriptures actually teach. If the Scriptures teach one side, that side is right. If they teach the other, that side is right. If they are genuinely silent or genuinely unclear at some point, honesty requires saying so.
I should be plain about where I stand, because a reader deserves to know it. My name is Paul Hainline. I have been a member of a non-institutional congregation since my baptism into Christ in December 2000, and I believe the Scriptures teach that position. I have tried in what follows to show why. But the goal of this booklet is not to win an argument. The goal is to let the reader — institutional, non-institutional, or simply curious — see the question whole, see it fairly, and do his own thinking in front of the text. If I have done my work well, an institutional reader should be able to read this booklet through and say, “He has represented my position accurately. I do not agree with his conclusions, but he has given me my own case fairly.” If that is possible, then the conversation Scripture calls for can begin. If it is not possible, the conversation never begins at all.
A word about the larger aim that both sides of this division have always shared, though they have disagreed about how to pursue it.
The churches of Christ, from the beginning, have tried to do something simple. We have tried to read the New Testament for what it actually establishes — the plan of salvation, the work and worship of the local church, the organization and pattern of the early churches — and to follow that pattern without adding to it what men have added since. We have tried to be Christians only. We have tried to call the church by the names the New Testament itself uses. We have tried to sing in the way the apostles authorized — vocal music from the heart, without addition. We have tried to observe the Lord’s Supper on the day the apostles observed it, and to be baptized in the manner and for the purpose the apostles commanded. When the churches of Christ have been at their best, they have been a conscious attempt to let the first-century pattern — as the Scriptures show it — be the pattern still.
There is, as I write this, a growing interest among younger believers in something they call restoring the New Testament church. House churches, simple-church gatherings, people weary of institutional religion and looking for something that feels more like what they read in the book of Acts. I welcome that interest. What I want those readers to know is that the churches of Christ have been pursuing this aim for more than two hundred years. A congregation identifying itself as a church of Christ is not claiming a denominational brand. It is attempting a description — a local assembly that belongs to Christ and is trying to be what the New Testament shows a church to be. That aim is older than the label for it. It is apostolic.
The division this booklet examines is not a quarrel between two denominations. It is a disagreement among brethren who share that aim about how it is faithfully carried out. Specifically: what does the local church, as a collective body, have authority from Christ to do, and what has Christ assigned to the individual Christian to do in his own sphere? That question sounds narrow. It is not. The answer shapes what a congregation builds, who it supports, how it uses its funds, what work it undertakes and what work it leaves to its members. Over a generation, a different answer to that question produces a different kind of congregation.
A brief word on method. Each chapter on a contested issue follows the same pattern: state the question plainly; state the institutional position as its own best advocates would state it; state the non-institutional position in the same way; walk the relevant Scripture text by text; and let the text carry the conclusion. The method is the same for every issue because the same discipline is owed to each, and because the reader ought to be able to trust that no issue has been handled with greater or lesser care than any other. Each chapter closes with questions for reflection and discussion. They are written for Wednesday-night Bible class use, for small-group study, for family discussion, and for private reading with a pencil and the Book open. They are not rhetorical traps; they do not lead the reader to an assumed answer; where the text supports more than one honest conclusion, the questions say so.
I write the book assuming the reader is sincere. I assume he wants to know what the Scriptures teach. I assume that if the Scriptures teach something he has not been taught, or teach it differently than he has been taught, he would rather know than not know. I treat him as I would want to be treated if the positions were reversed.
I write the book assuming the Scriptures are what they claim to be — the inspired Word of God, complete and sufficient, the sole authority in matters of faith and practice. If a reader does not grant that premise, this booklet will not persuade him, because the whole method of the booklet rests on it.
Scripture quotations in this booklet are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB), 1995 edition, unless otherwise indicated. The NASB is used for its careful word-for-word rendering of the original languages. Where comparison with another translation is useful for clarity, the other translation is named at the point it appears. Where a translation choice itself is part of the argument, the underlying Greek or Hebrew is brought in directly. Every verse quoted has been checked against the actual text of the translation named.
My prayer for the reader is simple. Read with the Book open. Check what I have said against what the Scriptures actually say. Where I am right, accept it on the Scriptures’ authority, not mine. Where I am wrong, reject it for the same reason. A position must stand or fall based on what the Scriptures actually teach. That applies to every page of this booklet, and to every conviction you and I hold.
— Paul Hainline