The Church of Christ Cult Collage

The Church of Christ Cult Collage.

This cover a lot of history and teaching.

Exegesis in the Church of Christ

Exegesis in the Church of Christ relies on two things:

1. CENI-Command, Example, Necessary Inference-This is used to ferret out the Scriptural texts for the faith and practices of the Church of Christ.

2. Selective use of the Greek text of the New Testament. This is usually done by word studies for those who do not read the Koine Greek. If a person is able to read the Greek, then CENI and Greek word studies are fused together. The Greek texts are used to justify pre-ordained exegetical results the Church of Christ wants. It is like “Here is what we believe and practice (via CENI), now let’s use the Greek Text of the New Testament to bolster our conclusions.”

This is a dishonest use of the original languages of the Bible. I have to note, in the Church of Christ paradigm, there is not much use of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. It has been co-opted by the New Testament entirely. The Use of the OT is only performed to get an example to justify some COC practice -like the use of a pulpit as the center of the worship.

There has been some revolt over the years by Church of Christ professors and preachers able to  read the Greek New Testament and have been exposed to higher theological education. This usually comes in the form of “Historical Critical Interpretation” of the Bible.. This Historical Critical Interpretation was a reaction against CENI, but a lot was lost, as the Bible was reviewed like any other historical writing. This meant that revelation by God was not involved in the creation of the Bible, and the theories of the Historical Critical Theologians overshadowed Bible exegesis and interpretation. Thus, everything was now subject to question. The creation story, the denial of the Virgin birth, the Flood narratives and much more were all brought into question by a new generation of  Church of Christ scholars. This approach was adopted stealthily by many COC scholars at ACU and Pepperdine. What was taught by many COC professors at both Pepperdine  and ACU was “The Bible contains the Word of God, but is not the Word of God.”. I personally testify to this while a Bible and graduate student at ACU.

A few years later I started my Master of Divinity at Brite Divinity School in Ft. Worth. Texas. I studied New Testament Greek under Jack Suggs, a Koine Greek scholar of the Christian Church,Disciples  of Christ.. I took theology classes as well. Years later I completed my M.Div. at The Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. It was a seminary which exalted the historical-critical method as well. I went into the seminary as a Neo-Orthodox Liberal, and came out of that place a Fundamental Conservative, in relation to Bible Study and exegesis and interpretation. I rejected the Historical-Critical method as a highly subjective form of unbelief, as it denied the Bible was a revelation of God. It was only a human document, which was historically conditioned and subject to error. It was all just a vain search for “the Word of God in the Bible, which is not the Word of God”.

Years later I came across a serious German Scholar who rejected the Historical-Critical method, for a “Grammatical-historical” method of exegesis and interpretation. This, in my view, is the way to avoid the twin insanities of  “CENI” and “The Historical-Critical method”. This Scholars name is Gerhard Meier. He respects the Bible as the genuine revelation of God within history, and that we should study the grammar of the original languages  and the Biblical history to understand the Bible as the Word of God.  This is where I stand now. I reject both CENI and the Historical Critical method.

One Quaker preacher told me “without the historical-critical method, we have no way to study the Bible!!” That is an uninformed lie. With the Historical-Critical method, the Bible is reduced to nothing.

The Bible is the Word of God, which is inerrant and infallible in the original languages, That is why we need believers in Christ who are genuine scholars to translate the Bible to our generation from the Hebrew and NT Greek Texts.

The Evolution of the Five Finger Exercise

The “5 finger exercise” of the Churches of Christ has evolved from the original “Gospel” of the Disciples of Christ. The Disciples of Christ started from Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone, for the most part. One of their later evangelists and mega-baptizers was Walter Scott (not the author). He summed up the Disciples of Christ creed into 6 propositions:

Faith

Repentance

Baptism

Remission of Sins

Gift of the Holy Spirit

Eternal life.

This was the verbal creed much like the Apostles Creed, but the DOC said that they were a creedless church. They fought against a creedal understanding of the Christian faith. As the Disciples of Christ spread West, they refined this to the “5 Finger Exercise, easily understood by simple folk and pioneers:

Believe, repent,confess, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

That was straight forward and simple. Hold up your fingers and tick off the Disciple’s Creed one at a time.

Later, from 1889 onward after the Church of Christ hijacking of the Disciples movement, the 5 finger exercise was refined even further:

Hear

Believe

Repent

Confess

Be baptized (by immersion per Acts 2:38 for the remission of sins)

This was the Church of Christ Creed for many years till it morphed again into its

current form:

Believe

Repent

Confess

Be baptized by immersion for the remission of sins

Be faithful unto death.

This form dropped some of the previous emphases: like “Hear [the Gospel]” and “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” . They still wanted to keep the 5 finger exercise, so it was condensed further and the last point was added: “Be faithful unto death.”

Being faithful unto death means to always maintain and keep “the faith acts of worship intact”. The 5 acts of worship are: preaching,praying,singing (acapella only),giving , and the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. Any deviation from this is an act of rebellion which will send a person to Hell. If a person keeps the 5 finger exercise, they are saved according to the Church of Christ Creed. But to STAY saved, they must never deviate from the 5 acts of worship. 

In my opinion #5 of the 5 finger exercise was implemented to cut down on attrition. About 80% of Church of Christ children leave the Churches of Christ, and a good portion of those who convert to the Church of Christ later leave when they get fed up with the legalism.

So the 5 Finger Exercise started with the Disciples of Christ and refined twice with them. Then it was taken over by the Church of Christ and altered twice to its final form. This 5 Finger Exercise is THE Church of Christ Creed. To be saved, one must obey this creed, rather than having a heart-felt conversion to Jesus Christ.

Church of Christ Bible Translations

One of the things I did appreciate was my introduction to Bibles other than the King James Version.

When I started college in 1965, the darling Bible of many of the COC’s was the American Standard Version. I used it my first two years of College with the COC. I actually liked it better than the KJV, and it was easier to read. The one I bought for my class had the “favorite” verses of the COC glued onto the inner cover. This actually became a defacto part of the Biblical Text. 

Then at Abilene Christian College, I took a course in the Gospel of John, and Dr. Neil Lightfoot, a very gracious man, taught from the RSV. This became my Bible for my last 2 years of college and graduate study. I began my ministry as a Church of Christ preacher in  Colorado. People there were shocked that I preached from the RSV, because “it was pro-communist and denied the Virgin birth of Jesus”. Needless to say I kept preaching from the RSV. I used the RSV from 1967 to 1982. It was then I adopted the NIV. I was shocked to find out many in the COC attacked the NIV, “because it denied the blood of Jesus”. Too much nonsense for me. I now use the NIV2011 and the UBS Greek New Testament. I really can’t do the Hebrew well, so I use the NIV 2011 and Hebrew word studies to deal with the text. I do have a Hebrew Bible.

Anyway, it looks like the COC is turning to the ESV, due to its anti-female bias. It is a remake of the RSV. It keeps the Virgin birth, but denies that Phoebe was a deacon It also puts an anti-woman slant on women speaking or praying in public.

Any comments or thought on this?

Church of Christ Exclusive Language

One thing I noted about the Church of Christ was that it took me about a year to get hold of and understand the exclusive language of the Church of Christ. Below are some examples. If you have more please share them:

1. “Obey the Gospel” = baptism according to Acts 2:38.

2. “The Lord’s Church”= Church of Christ.

3. “The New Testament Pattern”= What Churches of Christ have cherry picked from the New Testament as their pattern.

4.”New Testament Christianity Restored”= the great accomplishment of the Churches of Christ.

5. “Our Church was founded in AD 33″= We are God’s only true Church.

6.”The True Church”= our Church was founded in AD 33.

7. “The Plan of salvation”= Hear, believe,confess, repent and be baptized by immersion per Acts 2:38.

8.”Five Acts of Worship”= Preaching, Praying, Singing, Giving, Lord’s Supper (every Sunday).

9. “Doctrinally sound preachers”- .Preachers who only preach the Church of Christ plan of salvation, 5 acts of worship, and does not dissent from ALL the Church of Christ holds dear.

10. “The Lord’s Music”-.Acapella music only.

11. “Anti’s”= Other Churches of Christ who say we are doing things wrong. This includes the Non-Insitutional (NI) Churches of Christ, One-Cuppers, and Non-Sunday School groups.

12. “Liberals”.-Church of Christ preachers and leaders who do not follow the Church of Christ teachings (all of them). Liberals include those who use the NIV Bible, allow women to pray or preach in the church assembly, or have praise teams for music.

13. :”Heretic”- A Church of Christ preacher, member or church, who allows instrumental music, or believes that the COC is just another denomination, and that Christians in other churches are saved.

I am sure there are more, Feel free to add to the list.

10 Ways to spot spiritual abuse.

This is a good article by Mary Demuth, which was printed in churchleaders.com.

the link is:

http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/155481-10-ways-to-spot-spiritual-abuse.html

Not all of this applies to the Church of Christ, but enough does for an indictment.

Thanks, Gary

Cycle of Spiritual Abuse

The cycle of spiritual abuse in the Church of Christ runs like this:

1. Guilt-You fail to live up to ALL the teachings of the Church of Christ.

2.Shame-You are a bad person for this failure.

3. Inspiration-You get reinspired by a new preacher, book or self-talk.

4. Failure to live up to the “new” inspiration.

5. Repeat of the cycle of guilt and shame.

Nothing changes in spiritually abusive churches. The only thing to do is to GET OUT.

 

Finally, at long last !!!!

What is a Cult?

This is a good question, as many people think a cult has to have a super-leader with mesmerizing powers.

This is not quite true. There does not have to be a group led by a fanatical leader. What follows is a basic definition of a cult:

1. A particular system of religious worship, which condemns all non-members to hell.

This clearly identifies the Church of Christ as a cult.

2. Great veneration of an ideal, to the exclusion of all else.  For the Church of Christ, this would be “The New Testament Pattern”.

3.An object of ultimate devotion. For the Church of Christ, this is the New Testament, to the exclusion of the Hebrew Bible.

4.A group bound together by a unifying vision, to the exclusion of all else. For the Church of Christ, this is “New Testament Christianity restored”.

5.A group having a set of rites which are beyond questioning or redefinition. For the Church of Christ, it is Baptism (Immersion) for the remission of sins, and the practice of the Lord’s Supper or Communion every Sunday. These two rites have to be maintained to qualify as a Church of Christ. All other views are wrong and damn a person to hell.

This is just a thumbnail definition of a cult, and the Church of Christ fits these categories well.

It is true that there are some “Progressive Churches of Christ”, but they are few and far between.  They would question many of the current beliefs and practices of the Churches of Christ, like the ones I pointed out.

In my opinion, the major flaw of the Church of Christ is that they believe the New Testament is a book of 27 writings by the apostles and their associates. New Testament Christianity means to follow everything “just right” in this book to be saved and maintain salvation- (The Church of Christ view, not the Bible’s) This is crazy, as the earliest church did not have the gathered writings as we do now in the form of a “New Testament”. Their main Bible was the Hebrew Bible or the Greek Old Testament. They quoted mostly from these writings in their preaching and in their letters to churches. The book called the New Testament was not completed until the end of the first century. Not all churches had a complete copy, and the canon of the New Testament was not finalized till about 325 AD. How could they be a New Testament Church, like the Church of Christ teaches? That is a good question and requires us to redefine New Testament Christianity. It is not a book or devotion or obedience to a book (the New Testament), rather it is a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Our righteousness is not a “works righteousness” based on obeying the writings of the New Testament. Our righteousness is a “gift righteousness”. It comes from receiving the Gospel in faith. It is a gift. It is not a our righteousness, no matter how we get it. It is the righteousness of Christ revealed to us in the Gospel. This righteousness is a right relationship with God and a cancellation of our sin through the death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul says: “Righteousness is by faith from first to last.” (Romans 1:16-17)