"NO CREED BUT CHRIST, NO BOOK BUT THE BIBLE"

“No creed but Christ; no book but the Bible.”

This, along with the related “Where the scriptures speak, we speak. Where the scriptures are silent, we are silent,” was the motto written or adopted by Thomas Campbell and Barton W. Stone during the formation of the Restoration Movement in the United States in the 1830's. It later broke into three distinct strands: the (non-instrumental) churches of Christ, the (independent) Christians churches, and the Disciples of Christ. During my lifetime, I have been a member of all three types of congregations, although not at present. And all three have adhered to those statements even though they have interpreted them in quite different ways.

The original intent of beginning the Restoration Movement was to break down the denominational barriers which had, and have, fragmented the Protestant church and to get Christians united together on the basics of the faith found in the Bible only without all the accretions added by theologians over the years. The goal was a noble one, but the means of carrying it out were not so clear cut.

Thus, even within the Restoration itself, this goal played itself out in diverse directions. At the risk of simplifying the picture and unfairly characterizing church groups in which congregational rule naturally leads to a variety of beliefs even among those who claim to belong to the same “denomination,” I would characterize the three branches of the Restoration Movement as follows:

    Disciples of Christ: Their method of pursuing unity was to be a driving force behind the now abandoned Ecumenical Movement in which representatives of many mainstream churches met together and attempted to draft position statements on doctrine and practice on which all the denominations could agree. The results were predictable in that the only super-denomination that could have possibly arisen, even if you could have gotten buy-in from the various groups, was an appeal to the lowest common denominator. As a result, the Disciples became yet another mainstream denomination with generally a liberal approach to the Scriptures.

    Independent Christian Church: At their best, the individual congregations found under this general umbrella (which is not a denomination by any means and has no central board) merely claim that they are “Christians only, but not the only Christians.” This approach appeals to those who may have become disenchanted with the layers of bureaucracy built up in their own denomination and wish to return to the roots of the early Church.

    (Non-instrumental) churches of Christ: By the title alone, you can immediately get the hint that they have quite strict ideas concerning what is and isn't in the Bible and are determined to stick to them. The belief in an argument from silence is mainly what caused them to break off from the other branches of the Restoration Movement and insist on a ban on musical instruments within the church as well as other characteristics which may include, depending on the individual congregation, denying that they are a denomination, banning women from speaking during church services, use of hymnals which use the archaic method of shaped notes, no choir, keeping the children with the parents in all of the services, and insisting that they are the only pure representation of the church as it was described in the New Testament.

Getting back to the common motto of all three branches, you can see that it may be a noble sentiment but hardly specific enough to form the sure basis of a congregation. For example, what does it mean to have no creed but Christ? Isn't that itself a creed? On the positive side, it seems to say that one must believe in Christ in order to join. Since “Christ” means Messiah, that would presumably mean that Jews who still believe in a coming Messiah would be at home in one of these congregations. And even if you amended the statement to say “Jesus Christ,” that might exclude Jews but it might still include Muslims, Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons. There are even a few independent Christian churches whose pastors openly deny that Jesus was divine. Without a more definite definition, that would also be perfectly acceptable.

Of course, in practice all three branches of the Restoration Movement have a number of credal beliefs, not always written down but strongly enforced. These include and go beyond matters of doctrine to encompass many areas of everyday Christian life such as proper attire in and out of the church and the propriety or non-propriety of everyday activities such as drinking, smoking, language, dating, dancing, and appropriate TV shows and movies, etc. Even in their attempt to discern the New Testament model for church leadership, various congregations manage to reach different conclusions.

And I know that among the separate branches of the movement, there is an unwritten list of acceptable Bible colleges and seminaries that each congregation swears by and criticizes other congregations who have a slightly different list. But in practice, practically anyone can start an independent Christian church whatever their lack of credentials or belief might be. As two example, in the state of New York I was officially recognized as one of three ministers of our tiny congregation and ended up preaching at two different congregations (one an American Baptist church) when I had had absolutely no Bible training other than what I had picked up in church. A few years later, the world heard of the infamous Jim Jones, who was also an independent Christian church pastor. He is better known as the one who led his congregation down to Central America and convinced or forced them to poison themselves with spiked Kool-Aid. I don't actually know which is the scarier story, Jones' actions or the fact that I was considered to have the necessary credentials to preach.

This brings up the second part of the motto: “No book but the Bible.” Again, that is such a broad but undefined statement that one would suppose, rightly, it certainly excluded the use of the Koran, Book of Mormon, or Mary Baker Eddy's writings as authoritative sources. However, that still leaves a lot of supposed latitude regarding the actual view taken toward the Bible ranging from a woodenly literal to a highly liberal stance that questions the veracity or applicability of practically every word in Scripture. Again, in practice such latitude is rarely tolerated in any congregation.

And even among the “Bible-believing” church movements and denominations who take the Bible seriously as the inspired word of God, there is a huge divide toward those who lean toward works vs. grace, free will vs. predestination, casual or charismatic worship style vs. liturgical, baptism by immersion vs. sprinkling, amillennialism vs. premillennialism, etc. etc.

Anyone who thinks that these issues are minor and never get in the way of concerted fellowship has not attended church for very long. In moving from an almost fundamentalist Christian church to a Bible church which similarly believed firmly that a literal interpretation of Scripture was to be followed, I found that I wouldn't be considered as a member until I signed an agreement saying that I believed in a premillennial scheme for future events. And as if that wasn't enough, some attendees who followed historical premillennialism rather than dispensational premillennialism were looked on with deep suspicion to the point where some of the elders proposed amending the membership requirement to exclude even those premillennialists.

The bottom line is that in practice every church group possesses a creed, whether written down or just taken for granted. This has the practical effect of ensuring that the membership is to one degree or another “of like mind.” Of course, how far this like-mindedness extends depends on the individual congregation. I say all of this specifically for congregationally-led churches. The denominational churches tend to be more upfront in spelling out the beliefs and teachings one might expect to encounter in their congregations. But even there, church splits are inevitable over issues such as the ordination of women.

Is there any way to achieve unity in Christendom without watering down essential Christian beliefs? The ecumenical approach appears to be a failure, and the Restoration Movement has only led to further splintering into smaller groups. I was part of a small start-up independent Christian church and helped draft our church constitution. The tack we took was, I believe, a sound one. We outlined the bare doctrines and church practices that we were going to follow so that one joining the church would know very clearly what to expect. And in the requirements for joining the congregation, we limited it to the minimum in keeping with our core beliefs: a declaration that Jesus was Christ, the Son of God, and one's personal savior coupled with a statement that the person had been baptized by immersion as a believer. We made it clear that these were the requirements for joining our particular congregation, but were not meant in any way to imply that those who did not meet their qualifications were not Christians. That brings up another popular motto of Restoration churches: “We are Christians only, but not the only Christians.”

The two most important pieces of advice I would give a congregation to reduce friction within the body of Christ are (1) not to set up unnecessary barriers to inter-denominational fellowship while at the same time (2) making it very clear what sort of teachings and practices to expect while at one's church.

And a final “word of wisdom” of anyone joining a new church. Please do not join with the idea that you will change any policies or doctrines you do not personally agree with. Several times, I have experienced the church conflict this sort of attitude causes, and it does always leads to damage to the cause of Christ. At the Bible church I mentioned above, I attended for a number of years without ever officially joining and even led an adult Sunday school group most of that time, but it was with the express agreement with the elders that I would never teach on the subject of eschatology since I told them openly that I did not necessarily subscribe to their particular interpretation.

By contrast, I have seen a number of members of different congregations leave in a huff after openly disagreeing with church policies or doctrines that were clearly laid out in advance for them to see. And, in addition, I have seen some church members being asked to leave or told to keep their opinions to themselves when they began expressing out-and-out heretical beliefs that they should have known were not only contrary to the official position of the congregation or denomination, but contrary to the basic beliefs of Christianity itself.