Baptism and Sectarianism within Churches of Christ

Churches of Christ have begun to fragment in recent decades.

Churches of Christ used to be extremely uniform in their practices and beliefs back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. If you were to visit churches in California and New Jersey, you would not be able to tell much difference between the two services. The order of worship would have been the same. The songs would have been familiar. And the sermons would have put forth similar ideas. On the surface one would have thought that someone somewhere was controlling all this and that all churches were incredibly unified. Looks can be deceiving.

There were actually many tears in the fabric of uniformity among Churches of Christ from the very beginning. Powerful journal editors (Gospel Advocate, Firm Foundation, etc.) were especially adept at stamping out all signs of disagreement and variety. The torn fabric became too great to hide, however, in the 70s when differing conclusions on issues like divorce and remarriage were not easily dismissed. Christians in some of our churches were discovering grace at this time and began to realize that uniformity was not the same thing as unity. I am glossing over a very complex history, and you can certainly feel free to take me to task for this!

Our position on baptism makes a good case study. During the decades of uniformity, all members of Churches of Christ had almost certainly undergone the exact same rite of baptism. Our practice included not only the idea that baptism must be by immersion but also (and here was the crucial part!) that it must be for the right reasons. People who had been baptized in Baptist or other churches were almost certainly rebaptized in the Church of Christ by a Church of Christ minister to be sure that the baptism was valid. Individuals from Christian Churches were even rebaptized, despite the fact that their understanding of baptism mirrored our own. We believed that rebaptism was necessary in all these cases so that people could "go to heaven." Salvation was impossible in our view without proper baptism. It was all about punching your ticket to heaven. "Why take chances with man's way when God has already spelled out His way?" This was the general rationale.

Since Churches of Christ are a modern movement and until recently were largely limited to the southeastern United States, one might have concluded that heaven will be populated only by the first Christians (before practices like baptism were corrupted) and by 19th- & 20th-century Americans from the deep South. Perhaps heaven's kitchen fixes fried chicken, turnip greens & grits! Wouldn't this be the logical conclusion one would come to if you follow our position out all the way?

If all the improperly baptized are lost -- even devout Christians who simply haven't been baptized the right way for the right reasons -- then shouldn't we do everything within our power to baptize as many as possible? This was the conclusion of some campus ministry workers in Gainesville, Florida. In the 1970s they became almost militant in their pursuit of baptisms, using every possible tool to get people baptized. They had great success in producing huge numbers. People flocked to the Crossroads church there in Gainesville to learn the methods of the movement that came to be known as Crossroads.

Their high-pressure methods eventually created enormous anger and division, and the Gainesville church fired all the leaders of this movement. Most regrouped in Boston around 1980 and started to detach from the Churches of Christ, calling us "lukewarm" in our faith because we were not emphasizing baptism at all cost. They grew to call themselves the International Church of Christ. After many years of being identified in the media as a cult, they have softened a bit of late and even opened some fairly healthy dialogue with Churches of Christ.

Through all the "fanaticism" of the Crossroads & Boston years, many Christians began to rethink questions of faith and evangelism. Is incorrect baptism the unforgivable sin? Is one's faith false if his/her baptism wasn't right? Is evangelism everything? Some churches still say "yes" while shying away from heavy-handed evangelism. But many Christians in our churches have been saying "no" in recent years.

It's an interesting conversation. But where does it leave us? And where does it lead us?