Institutionalism
History Repeating Itself (no.1)

We must keep in mind that the church, in its universal sense, is nothing more than a relationship. It is composed of all of God's people, wherever they may be located. There is no organization in this sense, it is not a denomination, or a sect. It is the spiritual body of Christ (Acts 2:47; Eph.1:22-23; 5:25-27). In this relationship members are accountable only to the Lord. No organization is needed, nor authorized.

In the local sense, the church, (i.e., God's saved people), is circumscribed by locality. (ex. 1Cor 1:2). Its members physically assemble at a certain locale at prescribed times to worship God (Acts 2:42; 20:7). It has organization (Phil 1:1), raises and maintains its own treasury (1Cor 16:1-2); and functions in the works of evangelism, edification and benevolence, separate and apart from any other church. Every collective duty binding upon Christians is discharged through the local church. Each local church is completely autonomous (self-ruling), independent and equal to every other church in the eyes of God. God's only divine collective is the local church.

In a previous article it was pointed out that Institutionalism developed because men desired to activate the universal church, an idea completely foreign to the divine pattern for the Lord's church, revealed in the New Testament. They were not satisfied with doing God's work in God's way. This attitude is depicted so clearly in Hos 8:12. "I have written for him the great things of My law, but they were considered a strange thing." Mankind left to its own ways have never drawn closer to God.

This desire to expand upon and change God's work and God's way is nothing new. It has existed in every generation all the way back to the Garden of Eden. It is man's failure to regard and submit to divine authority. Division and apostacy are the final results of such action.

The sad thing is that even though history reveals this happening over and over again, each generation says it won't happen to us. How wrong they are. It has happened before, and it will happen again.

Anyone familiar with the history of the Restoration Movement knows that it began when men realized that mankind had departed from God. They were tired of the divisive creeds and names. They knew that God was not the God of confusion (1Cor 14:33), and certainly was not pleased with division, (1Cor 1:10; Eph 4:4-6). The only cure for them was to return to the Bible, and the Old Paths, (Jer 6:16). So, they challenged people to reject the divisive creeds and names and use the Bible alone as their guide. Their slogan based on 1Pet 4:11 became "Let's speak where the Bible speaks, and be silent where the Bible is silent." "Let's do Bible things in Bible ways, and call Bible things by Bible names." (Col 3:17). This movement began to spread like wildfire over the American frontier. Men and women by the thousands, came out of denominationalism, and in some places whole denominational churches were converted. People took their stand upon the word of God, contending mightily for "the Faith once for all delivered unto the saints." (Jude 3). Churches of Christ were being established everywhere. It seemed they were going to win the world for Christ. BUT, THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED.

Some of the very men who stood in the forefront of the Restoration Movement, began to grow dissatisfied with God arrangement. They decided the church of Christ operating in its congregational (local) capacity was incapable of accomplishing the work of preaching the gospel to the world. So, they sought to activate the church universal. Alexander Campbell, in the forefront of the movement reasoned, God has given the church the responsibility of saving souls, but to what church - church universal or church local? He decided the church universal had the obligation of preaching the gospel to save souls, so any method the church universal used to preach the gospel was acceptable on the basis of expediency. God said do it, but didn't prescribe the ways and means to do it, so whatever scheme man devised would be acceptable. They were now abandoning the very principles that had motivated them to come out of denominationalism and plant the church found in the New Testament. In the next article we will see the bitter harvest that resulted as these men worked to activate the church universal. - Tommy Thornhill

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