Is the Church of Christ a Cult? #2

I have no problem with anyone's criticizing the church of Christ. After all, criticisms of the church in the first century were very common. Paul's preaching at Corinth angered his fellow Jews. They arrested him and took him before Gallio, the chief deputy of Achaia. They charged: "This fellow persuades men to worship God contrary to the law." Gallio had enough good sense to realize the problems were matters of religious conviction. He told the Jews: "If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O you Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: but if it be a question of words and names, and your law, look to it: for I will be no judge of such matters. And he drove them from the judgment seat" (Acts 18:13-16). At Ephesus Paul's preaching caused a rriot among the worshippers of the great goddess Artemis. Demetrius, probably the head of the local silversmiths union, told his fellow craftsmen that Paul was preaching against idolatry, saying there are no gods made with hands (Acts 19:23ff.). In the very last chapter of Acts, the church of our Lord is called "the sect everywhere spoken against" (Acts 28:22).The church was not a sect, but it was widely opposed and criticized.

On the "Nancy Grace Show" March 27, 2006, a Baptist preacher by the name of Tom Rukala spoke very negatively of churches of Christ. Tragically, he did not know whereof he spoke. He said the church of Christ was relatively new. He affirmed that it started about 150 years ago by Alexander Campbell. The Rock Springs Church of Christ at Celina, Tennessee, was established in 1805—four years before Alexander Campbell came to America. If Tom Rukala did not know that, he should have excused himself from his interview with Nancy Grace. He accused us of being a legalistic sect, one that uses intimidation and pressure tactics. He declared: "They claim that they are the only ones going to heaven, and all other people are condemned to hell." He argued: "They claim that if you're not baptized by one of their ministers, you're doomed to hell, even if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, which, of course, breaks completely from the traditional Christian view that all those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved because by grace are you saved through faith in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose again. For the Church of Christ folks, that's not enough. You have to be a member of their narrow sect. It's a very exclusive group. And if you're not a member of their sect, you're condemned." So much for a preacher who is biased toward the church of Christ and ignorant of our beliefs and practices!

Tom Rukala has made a number of factual errors, all of them inexcusable. For example, Alexander Campbell did not establish the church of Christ—not even in the United States. There were churches of Christ in the United States before Campbell came to America. Besides, Campbell came to America almost 200 years ago—not 150 years ago—as Tom Rukala ignorantly asserts. And in all my more than sixty years of preaching, I have never heard one preacher insist that people had to be baptized by one of our preachers for his baptism to be valid. Would that not make the validity of our baptism contingent on the goodness and faithfulness of the preacher?

Many of Tom Rukala's observations were intended to create prejudice toward churches of Christ. For example, he calls the church of Christ a "legalistic sect." He knew the kind of effect that kind of language would have on Nancy Grace's viewers. He accused churches of Christ of using intimidation and pressure tactics. He said we believe we are the only people going to heaven. Does he believe that we must accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior to have the promise of eternal life? Is that not a very exclusive attitude?

Tom Rukala kept referring to the church of Christ as a sect. Nancy Grace responded. "You know, Pastor, you keep saying 'sect.' You make it sound like a cult." Rukala answered: "It kind of is a borderline cult, unfortunately. I don't want to make it out to be some kind of Hare Krishna group, but it has cult-like characteristics... and in the sense of the exclusivism, the attitude that they are the only ones who know the truth. The tactics that they use are sometimes just—not only unbiblical, but unethical, and they very ungracious, unfortunately."

Are there some members of some the churches of Christ who use unbiblical, unethical and ungracious tactics? It would be unusual if that were not the case. In fact, I have known members of the church who were guilty of being crude and rude in dealing with others. But I have known few who were more unbiblical, unethical and ungracious than Tom Rukala. He falsely accused churches of Christ. He appealed to prejudice in discussing what we believe and practice. I am reminded of Paul's questions in the great Roman letter. "You who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say that a man should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you commit sacrilege? You who make a boast of the law, through breaking the law, do you dishonor God" (Rom. 2:21-23)? In other words, before we start criticizing others for being unbiblical, unethical and ungracious, we must take a look into our own hearts.

When Nancy Grace understood Tom Rukala to say that the church of Christ was a cult, he responded: "It kind of is a borderline cult, unfortunately....It has cult-like characteristics, in the sense of the exclusivism." Is the church of Christ a cult? Does it have cult-like characteristics? Does believing and preaching what Rukala calls "exclusivism" make us a cult? Did the apostle Peter exhibit cult-like characteristics when he told some Jews in Jerusalem: "This is the stone that was set a nought by you builders, which has become the head of the corner? Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:11-12)?

When I was teaching in the Bible Department at Freed-Hardeman University, I taught a course on "Denominational Dogmas." Dr. Walter Martin's book, The Kingdom of the Cults (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., Publishers, 1977), was one of the textbooks we used. The late Dr. Walter Martin was a specialist in dealing with cults in America. His book has extensive discussions of Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Mormonism, Spiritism, the Theosophical Society, Zen Buddhism, the Bahai Faith and other groups. Oddly enough, Dr. Martin did not include churches of Christ in that list. Maybe he did not know as much about churches of Christ as Tom Rukala purports to know.

Dr. Martin quotes Dr. Charles Braden's definition of a cult. "By the term 'cult' I mean nothing derogatory to any group so classified. A cult, as I define it, is any religious group which differs significantly in some one or more respects as to belief or practice, from those religious groups which are regarded as the normative expression of religion in our total culture" (p. 11). Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines the word "cult" as follows: "A religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious" (p. 552). If Dr. Charles Braden's definition of a cult is correct—and it seems to be what most scholars accept—almost any distinctive group in the world could be called a cult. That would be true of Tom Rukala's group as well as every other religious group in the United States.

Do churches of Christ constitute a cult? Answering that question will occupy the remainder of time today. If faithful churches of Christ constitute a cult, the church of Christ established on the day of Pentecost was a cult. We teach exactly the same truths Peter emphasized on that great day. I shall not review the entire sermon Peter preached on Pentecost, but this we know: He convinced the Jews that they had crucified their own Messiah. He climaxed his sermon by stating: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made this same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). When the Jews heard Peter's sermon, they asked him and the other apostles: "Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:37-38). There were three thousand souls who accepted the gospel message and were baptized into Christ (Acts 2:41).

Through God's goodness I have been able to preach the gospel for more than sixty years. I have repeated Peter's word hundreds—no, thousands of times. Am I being cultic when I tell my audiences exactly what Peter told the Jews on Pentecost? The word "cult" does not appear in the Greek New Testament, but the word "heresy" does. When the apostle Paul was being tried for heresy before the Jewish council, he vigorously denied the charges the Jews had brought against him. He then said, "But this I confess unto you, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets" (Acts 24:12-14). Paul was not guilty of preaching heresy. The Jews called the gospel heresy. Paul could not deny he was preaching the gospel of Christ since it was the power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16).

If preaching baptism for the remission of sins—as Peter preached on Pentecost—is cultic, then I confess that I am cultic in orientation. Faithful preachers among churches of Christ have always preached baptism for the remission of sins. Saul of Tarsus had been a bitter opponent of the Lord's church. He told the Galatians that he "had persecuted the church beyond measure and wasted it" (Gal. 1:13). But when he learned that Jesus was truly the Son of God and not an impostor, he obeyed the gospel of Christ. Christ himself sent a preacher by the name of Ananias to tell Saul what he had to do to be saved. Ananias commanded Saul: "Arise, and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord" (Acts 22:16).

I must ask you some questions about Saul's conversion. Was Ananias cult-like when he commanded Saul to be baptized to wash away his sins? When Saul was baptized in harmony with Ananias's divine message, did Saul become a member of a cult? As Saul (later Paul) reflected on his baptism and that of the Corinthians, he told the Corinthians: "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:13). Did you notice the first person plural pronoun "we?" "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." Were Paul and the Corinthians members of a cult? If they were, should not all of us be members of the same cult?

The book of Romans stresses the absolute necessity of obeying the Lord. Nobody can read that great book with any understanding and maintain the Calvinistic doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith alone. Paul argued that God will render to every man according to his deeds—not just according to his faith. "To them who by patient continuance in well doing" who "seek for glory and honor and immortality," he will give "eternal life." "But unto them who are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath," he will give them "tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God" (Rom. 2:6-11).

I ask you to take careful notice of the many times Paul uses the first person plural pronoun in the following passage. "Do you not know, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of God the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin....Do you not know, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey: whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine that was delivered unto you. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness" (Rom. 6:3-6, 16-18). If preaching these great truths from the book of Romans makes cult members, I plead guilty of being cultic.

The church of Christ in the first century observed the Lord's supper every Lord's day. While very few modern churches imitate the example of the first century churches, there is almost universal agreement among theologians—whether liberal or conservative—that the first century church observed the Lord's supper every Lord's day. When churches of Christ teach that great truth and follow that practice, does that make us a cult? If it does, I am grateful to God that I can be a member of the New Testament cult.

The early church did not use mechanical instruments of music. There is not a New Testament scholar in the world who can prove otherwise. In fact, I do not know of one scholar who will even attempt to do it. There was a time when Christian Church preachers debated the scripturalness of instrumental music in the worship of the church, but they have given up doing that. They just accept the practice without trying to find scriptural authority for it. When churches of Christ reject mechanical instruments of music in the worship of the church, does that make us a cult? If it does, some of the founders of modern denominations and some of their outstanding preachers who strongly opposed it were cultic. Does Tom Rukala believe that John Calvin, John Wesley, Martin Luther, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Adam Clark and Dr. John L. Girardeau were cultic?

The books of Ephesians and Colossians authorize singing. Paul admonished the Ephesians: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord" (Eph. 5:18-19). He urged the Colossians: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him" (Col. 3:16-17). I have given you verses that authorize singing in the worship of the church. Where are the passages that authorize instrumental music in worship?

In the city of Paducah, Kentucky, there was a debate on instrumental music between a Christian Church preacher and a preacher among the churches the Christ. The preacher of the church of Christ asked the Christian Church preacher to write on the chalkboard a verse of scripture—just one verse—that authorized instrumental music in worship. Of course, the Christian Church preacher could not do that. So his elders called him to a meeting and demanded that he write a passage on the board. The preacher asked the elders to furnish the verse. They could not do so; so they fired the preacher. He left the Christian Church and preached among churches of Christ until his death.

Are we guilty of promoting cultism when we insist that churches should engage only in activities that are authorized? The truth of the matter is that all conservative churches and some liberal ones quote the Bible to authorize certain beliefs and behaviors. Are they cultic when they do so? What reasons have churches for existing if they are not going to honor the word of God? Are churches of Christ a cult when they demand a "thus says the Lord" for all we do in the work and worship of the church?

Please understand that I am not angry with Nancy Grace or with Tom Rukala. I am disappointed that Nancy Grace did not call on some knowledgeable preacher of the gospel if she wanted to know about churches of Christ. I am also disappointed that Tom Rukala discussed matters he did not understand. Is it important that we not falsely accuse anyone, even if he is a member of a cult? Should we not repent publicly when have misrepresented a person or a group?

If you have questions or comments on my lesson, please let me hear from you.

Winford Claiborne

The International Gospel Hour

P.O. Box 118

Fayetteville, TN 37334