Churches of Christ Controversies

[notreligus]

Churches of Christ  - Controversies

From page 219 of The Encyclopedia Of The Stone-Campbell Movement

Churches of Christ have been faced with numerous controversies from the beginning.  Along with objections to missions organizations and musical instrumental music was also an objection to located preachers, this is, preachers who work full time for one congregation.  The polemic against located ministers was especially strong in the writing of Austin McGary (1845-1928) of Texas, in the 1880s.  David Lipscomb shared McGary's view.   Not until the early decades of the twentieth century did some churches appoint ministers to do most of the preaching, and many churches did not employ preachers until after World War II.  Some leaders, especially Daniel Sommer (1850-1940) and, later, Carl Ketcherside (1908-1989), asserted that all capable men of the congregation should share in preaching and teaching or, as they call it, mutual ministry.

Premillennialism emerged as a major point of controversy after 1910.  Prior to that time many leaders in the Churches of Christ were moderate historical premillennialists, though not advocating any specific interpretations.  As dispensational premillennialism emphasizing the rapture, the national restoration of the Jewish people, the future of the church, and the battle of Armageddon developed among fundamentalists, leaders in the Churches of Christ generally retreated from millenarian ideas.  Preachers such as Foy E. Wallace, Jr. (1986-1979), in effect pushed premillennial advocates such as Robert Henry Boll into a separate fellowship. In the late twentieth century premillennial Churches of Christ have asked not to be distinguished from mainstream Churches of Christ in Mac Lynn's directory, Churches of Christ in the United States.

Another controversy has to do with an emphasis on God's grace promoted by such persons as Kenney Carl Moser (1893-1976), Grover Cleveland Brewer (1885-1956), and others in the 1930s.  Only since the 1980s have their views been widely accepted.  In the 1980s a heated discussion focused on hermeneutics.  Drawing on Thomas Campbell, Churches of Christ historically determined "essentials" in the Scriptures by seeking commands, examples, and later, necessary inferences.  Some argued that this hermeneutic tended toward legalism, and that it is better to understand Scripture primarily through the lens of the character of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit for determining church and family life.  Traditionalists labeled this approach a "new hermeneutic" and urged rejection of it and the change agents advocating it.