ABILENE, TEXAS - A call for unity between “estranged brothers and sisters” highlighted the recent Abilene Christian University Lectureship, which focused on the 100-year-old division between a cappella and instrumental churches.

Several speakers urged church members to put instrumental music into the category of disputable matters, likening it to disagreements over Sunday school and individual communion cups.

The presidents of ACU, a 5,000-student university associated with a cappella churches of Christ, and Milligan College, a 1,000-student liberal arts college associated with instrumental Christian Churches, opened the Lectureship with a joint theme lecture.

ACU President Royce Money noted that the university was founded in 1906, the same year — coincidentally — that a federal religious census first reported the a cappella and instrumental churches as separate bodies.

“The original purpose of our movement was to be nondenominational Christians only,” Money said in a message on truth, grace and unity from the Gospel of John.

“After a period of an unprecedented spirit of unity and mutual acceptance in the first half of the 19th century, we certainly have had our share of conflicts and divisions … especially in the decades following the Civil War,” the ACU president said.

He added: “But in this dawning of the 21st century, there is a renewed spirit of unity among us — not for merging or for giving up long-held religious convictions that historically have divided us. Rather, it is a spirit of fellowship, of conversation, of reconciliation between estranged brothers and sisters.”

While church scholars disagree on whether the Bible allows only a cappella singing, the Lectureship underscored the fact that many members are re-evaluating the issue. Even steadfast opponents of instrumental music acknowledge that.

“There is, of course, no question that many in churches of Christ no longer believe that instrumental music is in any real sense wrong,” said Cecil May, dean of the Bible college at Faulkner University in Montgomery, Ala. “Of course, that greatly changes all of the perceptions about the division at the turn of the last century. Those differing perspectives, I have found, make meaningful communication difficult.”

CALL TO EMBRACE ‘TRUE SPIRIT OF UNITY’

Today, the a cappella churches report about 1.3 million baptized members in the U.S., slightly more than the instrumental churches’ 1.2 million. Both groups believe that Jesus is Lord, baptize for remission of sins and offer the Lord’s Supper each Sunday. Money suggested that fellowships sharing those traits must heed Jesus’ prayer for unity.

“I would humbly suggest that those of us who claim to be heirs of the glory of God, who claim to know a little bit about restoring New Testament Christianity in a fallen world, begin by asking God and asking each other for forgiveness for the messes we have made,” Money said. “Then we need to open the Scriptures together and let the one who is full of grace and truth teach us again the true spirit of unity.”

Milligan College President Don Jeanes addressed the split of 1906 less directly.

But he said: “You and I are brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, and we share this truth and this grace. And in turn, we share a common purpose, and as God’s people, we need to live it, we need to share it, and we need to show it. We need to take it to an unsaved world because that’s the light that has come into the world.”

Money expressed doubt that many people have looked at Restoration Movement churches over the last 100 years and said, “Behold, how they love one another.”

“But we’re going to do better in the next 100 years, and we’re going to do better beginning right now,” he said to cheers.

Along with the joint theme lecture by Money and Jeanes, the Lectureship hosted a three-day Restoration Forum featuring eight panelists from a cappella and instrumental churches. Among the panelists were the ministers of each fellowship’s largest congregation: Rick Atchley of the 6,400-member Richland Hills Church of Christ in Fort Worth, Texas, and Bob Russell of the 18,000-member Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky.

Differing views on how to handle the silence of Scripture on certain issues have contributed to the division, Atchley said.

“Where the Bible speaks, we speak,” he said, referring to a cappella churches. “And where the Bible is silent, we have even more to say.”

A person in a primitive hut in Africa could read the New Testament and determine that baptism is necessary for remission of sins and that God’s people should sing praises, Atchley said. “And they’ll probably get out their drums and beat them when they sing, and they’ll never for a moment think they’re wrong,” he said.

‘HIGH VIEW OF SCRIPTURE’

Russell stressed that independent Christian Churches parted from the “increasingly liberal” Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the mid-1920s.

“We want you to understand that the leaders in the independent Christian Churches have a high view of Scripture as the infallible word of God,” Russell said.

All the panelists supported stronger ties between the two groups. That concerns Howard Norton, a Bible professor and assistant dean for church relations at Harding University in Searcy, Ark.

Focusing on unity without substantive discussion of instrumental music represents a doctrinal compromise, said Norton, who was honored the second night of the ACU Lectureship -— along with his teammates — for mission work in Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s.

“I think there is a very strong movement within our fellowship — the a cappella church of Christ — to completely join up with the Christian Church and say that what they are doing by introducing instrumental music, that there’s nothing wrong with that,” Norton said.

Wayne Newland, a member of the Greater Portland Church of Christ in Maine, said he appreciated several of the Christian Church speakers complimenting a cappella singing.

“In discussing unity, there was no attempt to encourage us to use accompaniment,” Newland said. “All speakers focused on just accepting one another ‘across the keyboard.’”

April 1, 2006

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