ABILENE, TEXAS - Growing up in Temple, Texas, Royce Money never understood why his grandparents worshiped at different churches.

His grandfather, W.G. Whitlow, attended the instrumental First Christian Church, while his grandmother never missed services at the a cappella 7th and Avenue G Church of Christ.

“I didn’t understand why that had to be then, and I still don’t understand now,” said Money, president of Abilene Christian University, a 5,000-student university associated with a capella Churches of Christ for 100 years.

An ACU graduate, Money became president of his alma mater in 1991. He has served as a pulpit minister and worked as a marriage and family therapist.

He and Pam, his wife of 41 years, have two married daughters and five grandchildren.

This year marks both the centennial of ACU’s founding and, coincidentally, the 100-year anniversary of the split between a cappella and instrumental churches. Why did ACU think it was important to focus on unity at the Lectureship?

We have so many things in common. We are people with a common heritage. As I said in the joint theme lecture with Dr. Jeanes, I think people who are taught the same gospel, baptized with the same baptism and gather around the same Lord’s table every Sunday -ought to be, minimally, more aware and supportive of what’s going on in our respective branches of the family.

And we wanted to do whatever we could as an institution to help that along.

Obviously, in a movement like ours, everybody has to speak for themselves and as individual congregations. We speak for no one, and we make no attempt to do that. But I do speak for this institution. And I have deep convictions along these lines.

Have you received any criticism over the Lectureship’s focus?

There has been surprisingly little criticism up to this point. I’ve received solid support from my board of trustees. I made them aware of what we were planning in August last year and received nothing but encouragement. And I let them know again the weekend of the Lectureship what we were going to do.

Again, I received nothing but encouragement.

Where are churches of Christ on the issue of instrumental music? Are most members beyond the point of dividing fellowship over instruments, or does this remain a contentious issue?

I think it’s a potentially divisive issue. However, here’s what I see changing: I see more and more people in churches of Christ that are tired of sectarian bickering and turning our energy inside to the intramural squabbles, to the neglect of the greater mission of the gospel.

It’s really interesting. You take that, then you combine it with another element that I see. That is, I have been in a lot of these unity meetings with Christian Church leaders at various times. Never once has anybody ever come close to suggesting that the agenda ought to be that a cappella churches of Christ ought to have instruments. In fact, they say the opposite: “Stay where you are. Celebrate that tradition.”

What I think is changing is that more of us in the a cappella tradition are not willing to make the use of instrumental music a test of fellowship, and certainly not a test of salvation.

Does it matter to you if a church uses instruments in worship?

I would fight vigorously if instrumental music were attempted to be introduced into my home congregation. I am firmly within the a cappella tradition. But I have a tolerance for those who make other choices, and I don’t see that it needs to constitute a complete severing of fellowship or alienation. I just don’t see the need for that.

In your Lectureship address, you suggested that Christians ought to show a little humility. You said, “After all, we could be wrong or off a little bit on a thing or two.” Could you elaborate on what you meant?

I think somewhere along the way, some of us have picked up the idea that the concept of truth, or the concept of sound doctrine, means adherence to a defined set of propositional truths. For one thing, when Paul uses the term sound doctrine, it’s healthy teaching, it’s not a litmus test, it’s not an orthodoxy test. And the Gospel of John basically says that Jesus is the truth. So it’s not a proposition to be adhered to; it is in whom you believe rather than what you believe. What you believe is very, very important. The Bible is very clear on that. But if you do not have Jesus as the central focus, then what you believe really doesn’t matter all that much.

So, we don’t have to be perfect in our doctrinal understanding?

If I have to be doctrinally correct in every aspect in order to be pleasing to God, then it does not allow for spiritual growth, spiritual formation, changing my mind, seeing things from a different perspective. In our fellowship, if you went back and did some reading on the work of the Holy Spirit 40 or 50 years ago and compared it to what is being said now pretty openly, there is a decided shift.

Well, it would seem to me that we have to build into our concept of spiritual growth and maturing that ability to make those kinds of change. What cannot change, and what doesn’t change, is the basic acceptance of Jesus as the son of God and a response to that confession.

And even with that, it means so much more to me than it did when I was baptized on May 5, 1955, in Temple.

One thing you hear a lot today is that many people, particularly the younger generation, are leaving the church of Christ because they don’t have “brand loyalty.” How would you respond to that?

I am an ardent Restorationist at heart. I believe the plea is as valid today, if not more so, than it ever was. And the interesting thing is, much of the conservative Christian world — sometimes known as the evangelical Christian world — is heading in our direction. I mean that in the sense that there is more and more in common belief that we can find.

I lose patience with congregations and individuals who feel that they need to drop the “church of Christ” name in order to be more appealing. I don’t buy that. I don’t like the sectarian isolationist part of our past. But instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water, let’s preserve the best and the finest, which I think is imbedded in Jesus’ prayer for unity.

It does bother me that there is a leak, so to speak, where we have a generation of young people who aren’t even aware of the past. I’m an eternal optimist. I believe if they knew the story, they would embrace the story. What they’re rejecting is a perversion of the story, of being Christians only. The irony is, that’s where they’re trying to go. Christians only. That’s what I’m trying to go to also. But I’m staying. I’m not leaving.

(Photo caption: Abilene Christian University President Royce Money speaks at the university's Lectureship. Milligan College President Don Jeanes, seated, helped deliver the opening lecture.)

April 1, 2006

Related Stories: