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WHY I AM A
MEMBER OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
by Ralph
Kinney Bennett
“What church are you with?”
“Christian.”
“No,
I mean what denomination.”
“Christian.
We just call ourselves Christians.”
“Oh.”
I
could not begin to count how many times I have engaged in such an exchange,
and I am sure it is familiar to many in our fellowship. By insisting that
Christians should call themselves just that, the 19th-century American
religious leader Alexander Campbell clearly signaled a return to
fundamentals and equipped us with a marvelous intellectual
“foot-in-the-door.”
SIMPLICITY
Once
we begin to explain why we call ourselves “Christians only,” once we
introduce the biblical foundation, the logic, the simplicity of it, we have
opened the way to the very roots and heart of what the church is and is
supposed to be. It is the body of Christ on earth. It is supposed to
be—despite all the well-intentioned additions and accretions we humans
have put upon it—nothing more or less than spiritually reborn people
worshiping God and living by his Word.
Why
am I a member of the
church
of
Christ
?
Because I believe independent Christian churches and churches of Christ
strive to remove all the manmade clutter between me and the worship of the
Lord. In that, these congregations—“Restoration” churches—cleave to
the New Testament ideal. That ideal is characterized by simplicity.
Is
there anything so spare in its outlines yet so rich in its reality as the
New Testament church? The New Testament picture of Christians congregating
portrays nothing elaborate—just people praying, praising, and preaching.
These essential elements—baptism and partaking at the Lord’s table—are
presented in the simplest, most straightforward and unornamented way. It is
clear that they are not rituals but rather dynamic acts of participation.
Baptism
is the indelible benchmark of a sacred transaction between an individual
soul and God himself.
The
Lord’s table is the continuing, living link with the historical act of
Christ’s sacrifice.
VARIETY
On
the other hand, the New Testament picture of Christian living is a rich
tapestry of transformed lives. Weak men grow strong in faith, fire-breathing
persecutors become courageous defenders of faith, ordinary people battle
with sin and triumph—learning to love, to share, to comfort and counsel,
to meet the challenges of life in partnership with the Spirit.
Both
pictures portray worship in its fullest, truest sense. That’s the point.
Visit
many Christian churches and you will find great variety in the way God is
worshiped. But it is variety within limits. I’ve been to services I found
a bit too “contemporary” for my taste, and to others that were a tad too
restrained. But I may generally depend upon certain things—the vivid
preaching of sound doctrine (our churches are preaching churches), the
precious comfort of the Lord’s table, prayer, and praise through song.
And
one more thing. There is seldom any sense of hierarchy, but rather a sense
of mutual ministry—because sharing Christ and him crucified is the task of
everyone from the pulpit to the parking lot and beyond.
Ralph
Kinney Bennett, retired after a longtime career as senior editor with Reader’s
Digest, has also served as
an elder and Bible teacher in the local church and trustee with two
Christian colleges.
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