Barton Stone concluded that it is better to have written creeds than unwritten opinions that carry the authority of creeds. “This plan of uniting on opinions, whether contained in a book, or in the head, is not worth a straw, and can never effect christain union, or the union of primitive Christianity.”

In 1831 Stone wrote, “a formal union on the Bible, without possesing the spirit of that book” would be “a stumbling block, a delusive snare to the world.”

“O! for a revival of God’s own work in the world!” he often exclaimed. “May all that profess the name of Jesus be filled with the Spirit, and bring forth the fruits of love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, and goodness. Amen.”

All of the quotes above from Barton Stone are found in ch.3 of Distant Voices, by Leonard Allen, c.1993, ACU Press.

Of course we claim the whole of the NT as our creed. Or, the whole of the Bible as our creed. I am not sure that creeds are all that bad. I would remind us all that David Koresh claimed to be following the Bible, as does almost every denomination. I have never quite understood why we should avoid telling someone what we believe and why.

My theory is that all of us have a creed, a statement of faith, or a declaration of beliefs, we are just reluctant to share it openly.

Royce

Sadly, our flesh is inclined to try and distinguish ourselves from other sinners, and disparaging them is convenient in maintaining we are. If our conscience demands we refrain from singing praise with IM, we certainly should not. I suggest the reason is not that it is “corporate”, but personal. If singing while an instrument is being played is inherently wrong, then I ought not sing that way, even when I am by myself.

I am glad that you introduced the words of 2 Tim.2:19. It seems to me that many in cofC think that the LORD CHOOSES NOT TO KNOW those who are His. In fact some of the words of Jesus
may be “uncomfortably ignored”, eg, Mt.24:24, Mk. 13:20,27, Lk.18:7. Having grown up in churches of Christ, I know that those words of Jesus are uncomfortable for some.

Isaiah made only one argument that Yahweh is the only God — He alone fortells the future,46:9-10. The late Homer Hailey drove this point home to his students. (Those that learned the OT prophets at Sunset in Lubbock, learned them indirectly from brother Hailey.)Isaiah made only this argument to show the supremacy of Yahweh. Why then do many in cofC find it hard to accept that the Lord knows those that are His, that He chose us, rather than we chose Him? In regard to the Lord’s CHOOSING, these scriptures cannot be explained away: Ps.65:4, 2Thes.2:13, Jn 15:16, Gal.1:15, Jer.1:5.

All of us need to see how easily our pride deceives us in different ways. 50-60 years after the cross, John understood his remaining sin and need for confession, 1Jn.1:8-9. If all of us who gather in Jesus’ name asked ourselves, “What sins have I confessed to the Lord this past week?”, what would we recall?

I think this is a concept that may take some getting used to, and some may fear it as an opening to reject truth. But I think this fear is overstated. Does doubting a literal 144-hour creation period keep one from believing in Christ? How about questioning the “sun standing still” for Joshua? Or thinking Jonah’s riding around in a fish’s digestive tract for three days is metaphoric? It seems to me to be a wise course to at least consider just how short one’s “list of required agreements” could be.

How long is your list?

May the Spirit of Christ push all of us to be transparent and then transformed into His image.

There’s an interesting corollary to this when it comes to many of our doctrinal differences: if I believe something to be wrong, it doesn’t really matter whether or not I’m right. What counts is how I practice that belief. But, there’s a twist: a practice that I may believe to be wrong may, in fact, be right, in which case it’s perfectly all right for others to practice it, while it would be wrong for me to practice the same thing. Eating meat and observing religious holy days were mentioned in scripture. Let me extend the principle a bit.

I believe, based on my study of scriptures, that instrumental music is wrong in worship. However, that’s based on my study of scriptures, with no clear statement one way or the other in the Bible about it (and I don’t count arguments that depend on a graduate level knowledge of nuances of Greek and Hebrew to be clear statements in the Bible). What does that mean? It means that I can’t worship in a congregation that uses IM: if I do so, I’m condemning myself by willfully engaging in an activity that, to me, is sinful. On the other hand, since I cannot find an explict condemnation of the practice in scripture, I can’t condemn those who use IM to Hell. Nor can I consider them out of fellowship. I can call them my brothers and sisters. I can break bread with them. In an a cappella setting, I can worship with them. Just because I can’t worship with them in an IM setting doesn’t make them any less my brothers and sisters. When we can ALL respect each other’s consciences without trying to bind them on others, we’ll go a long way toward the unity we need.

As a conservative, I understand from scripture that I am not here to judge who is and who is not in fellowship. However, I am to judge with righteous judgment, i.e., the judgement of Jesus, based on His words and, by extension, the words of the inspired writers. In order to judge with righteous judgement, I must rightly divide the word of truth. One of the keys to doing so is establishing the context of what the writers are saying. It’s a decidedly nonconservative position to take a statement out of context and apply it to situations the writer did not have in mind (especially true of I John, where context is critical).

I know that Jesus made it clear, in the parable of the wheat and the tares, that it is not my job to purify the church. He’s quite capable of taking care of that Himself. When I try to do someone else’s job, it’s usually a sign I’m not doing my own. As a conservative, I take as my job to study to understand God’s will for my life as much as possible and to do that, in the assembly, on the job, with my family, with the world as a whole. I may not always like God’s will for me; I definitely don’t always like what God has to say about me in His word. However, I’m not called to like everything God says, merely to believe it and do it…and that’s enough.

Richard May has offered a strong candidate:

My experience is that “error that condemns” is error that is plain to see.

I’d love to see discussion of that from the conservatives. Is that your standard?

Let me suggest a slight adaptation of Richard’s comment. It appears to me that conservatives consider an “error that condemns” to be one which the person knows deep down in his heart is an error, but doesn’t want to admit it. When he doesn’t change his mind after being taught what the conservatives consider the irrefutable arguments against the error, it demonstrates a lack of submission to God’s word. I’ll attemt to formulate the argument similarly to Jay’s examples above:

1) A person who refuses to submit to God stands condemned.
2) Refusal to accept irrefutable arguments against a position one holds is a refusal to submit to God.
3) Argument X is an irrefutable argument against the position held by person A.
4) Person A does not accept Argument X.
5) Therefore Person A refuses to submit to God.
6) Therefore Person A stands condemned.

There are several points where this line of reasoning could be challenged. But the most obvious and relevant is step 3. Who gets to decide which arguments are irrefutable?

All of the church of Christ divisions that come to my mind right now are based on inferences from scripture. The question is, are those inferences “necessary inferences?” Or to put it another way, is that argument irrefutable? Is there really no logical alternative? It is not sufficient merely to show that the conservative position is the best alternative. To be a necessary inference, it must be the only alternative.