Non-Catholics: Does your pastor preach this: Where the Scriptures are Silent, We Should Be Silent"?

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Red_in_205 said:
I can confirm that this is a commonly used phrase among members of the Church of Christ and other churches that came out of the Stone-Campbell “Restoration” movement in the 2nd American Great Awakening. I went to a K-12 school run by the Churches of Christ. I have a good understanding of their beliefs, but I am not a member, so keep in mind that I’m speaking for other people when I talk about their perspective.

Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell’s goal was to return to “1st Century Christianity” by rejecting all man made creeds, “calling Bible things by Bible names” and labeling themselves as “Christians only” as opposed to Methodists, Lutherans, Catholics, etc. They consider the Bible, which is inerrant and meant to be taken literally, to be the only rule of faith. Their other most important beliefs are that salvation only comes through believer’s baptism, that immersion is the only acceptable form of baptism, and that a person must continue to live a holy life after baptism to be saved.

A member of the CoC would challenge Catholic arguments about Church tradition by arguing that unwritten tradition is inherently less reliable than the written word, especially in places where it seems to contradict or supplant anything in the Bible. They would challenge anyone bringing an argument from the apostolic tradition to prove that an apostle actually taught that practice or belief, and they would reject any evidence you might give if it didn’t come directly from the Bible. They would be completely unimpressed with any argument that comes from church practice after about A.D. 100, because they think that the church was already deeply in error by the time of the ecumenical councils. In other words, they couldn’t care less what Irenaeus, Ignatius, or Polycarp have to say about anything.

On the plus side, their members tend to be very serious students of the Bible and able to cite several scripture references to back up their beliefs. On the negative side, they’re pretty clearly wrong about one of their most fundamental beliefs, which is that the Bible is easy for average people to read and fully understand. They also tend to be very… let’s say “self-assured” of the absolute correctness of all their doctrines. To them, anyone who disagrees with a CoC doctrine is simply refusing to acknowledge the obvious truth for selfish reasons. (It goes without saying that they are the only Christian group in all of recorded history to have such a totally unprecedented attitude. :D)
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Hasn’t there been like a ton of splits between Church of Christ people. I mean one church adds a piano to worship and all of a sudden their disfellowshipped from all the other CoC churches. I think I read a long blog about how this attitude is pervasive in this tradition.
 
ltwin said:
Hasn’t there been like a ton of splits between Church of Christ people. I mean one church adds a piano to worship and all of a sudden their disfellowshipped from all the other CoC churches. I think I read a long blog about how this attitude is pervasive in this tradition.
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Yes. The Stone-Campbell movement was originally meant to unite all Christians under a simple, easy to understand interpretation of the Bible and the practices of the 1st Century church. The goal was “In essentials, Unity; In non-essentials, Liberty; and in all things, Charity.” The problem is that without any kind of creed or authority structure, no one can really agree on what “essentials” and “non-essentials” are.

The movement has split into The Disciples of Christ, which have a national structure like other Protestant denominations, and the Churches of Christ, which are all 100% autonomous local congregations. Theoretically, a Church of Christ could teach completely different things from the CoC on the other side of town, and no one could do anything about it. More recently, an offshoot group called the “Christian Churches and Churches of Christ” has split from the Disciples of Christ in a reaction to what they saw as creeping modernism in the denomination.

So we’ve got the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and the Churches of Christ. They’re all separate groups, but the Churches of Christ aren’t really a group at all because each church is separate from every other church. Easy, right? 👍

Overall, I’d say the original goal of building Christian unity hasn’t worked out so well.
 
Red_in_205 said:
Yes. The Stone-Campbell movement was originally meant to unite all Christians under a simple, easy to understand interpretation of the Bible and the practices of the 1st Century church. The goal was “In essentials, Unity; In non-essentials, Liberty; and in all things, Charity.” The problem is that without any kind of creed or authority structure, no one can really agree on what “essentials” and “non-essentials” are.

The movement has split into The Disciples of Christ, which have a national structure like other Protestant denominations, and the Churches of Christ, which are all 100% autonomous local congregations. Theoretically, a Church of Christ could teach completely different things from the CoC on the other side of town, and no one could do anything about it. More recently, an offshoot group called the “Christian Churches and Churches of Christ” has split from the Disciples of Christ in a reaction to what they saw as creeping modernism in the denomination.

So we’ve got the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and the Churches of Christ. They’re all separate groups, but the Churches of Christ aren’t really a group at all because each church is separate from every other church. Easy, right? 👍

Overall, I’d say the original goal of building Christian unity hasn’t worked out so well.
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So I guess this is confirmation that “Where the Bible is silent, we are silent” doesn’t work to well …
 
ltwin said:
So I guess this is confirmation that “Where the Bible is silent, we are silent” doesn’t work to well …
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Yep.

The problem (in my opinion) is that the Restorationist movement is based on three flawed premises :
  1. That reading the Bible will lead everyone to the same clear understanding of essential doctrine, and anyone who denies these “obvious” understandings has an ulterior motive.
  2. That we can’t learn anything important by studying what the church taught and did after the deaths of the apostles or from any written work other than the Bible.
  3. That God meant for all churches to be 100% autonomous.
 
ltwin said:
Hasn’t there been like a ton of splits between Church of Christ people. I mean one church adds a piano to worship and all of a sudden their disfellowshipped from all the other CoC churches. I think I read a long blog about how this attitude is pervasive in this tradition.
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Yes there are many differences in THE church of Christ, and they split at the drop of a hat.

Some of the ones I can think of are. Some cofcs have sunday school classes, others do not.

Most use individual plastic shot glasses for the grape juice in the “Lord’s Supper” while some use a single glass which they pass around.

Most provide funding for what they call “institutions” like colleges, orphanages. While a few don’t.

The csofc that are the few are called “anti” in cofc parlence.

All this is found in a sect that was founded on the principle of Christian Unity.

As far as I know there are no csofc that use pianos or any other instruments.

They have no clergy, all are the same and any male can preach. But most of them have full time “preachers”, but they are not ordained. Anyone who can get the board of elders to hire him can be a preacher. They have no seminaries, but there are a few “schools of preaching”.

Probably you can tell that I converted from this sect.

Anything not demanded in the bible (authorised) is forbidden, like musical instruments, candles etc.
 
ltwin said:
I think that must be changing: Nation’s largest Church of Christ adding instrumental service
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I was absolutely shocked by this article. The Church of Christ congregations near me consider accapella worship to be an extremely important and distinctive part of their identity. Given that the news was originally published in 2007, I’d say that it hasn’t become a trend. Keep in mind that what happens in one CoC could have absolutely nothing to do with what happens in any other CoC. They make all their decisions on a congregation by congregation basis. It’s not like the adoption of the new roman missal, for example.
 
Red_in_205 said:
I was absolutely shocked by this article. The Church of Christ congregations near me consider accapella worship to be an extremely important and distinctive part of their identity. Given that the news was originally published in 2007, I’d say that it hasn’t become a trend. Keep in mind that what happens in one CoC could have absolutely nothing to do with what happens in any other CoC. They make all their decisions on a congregation by congregation basis. It’s not like the adoption of the new roman missal, for example.
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I have no idea. But there is a whole website dedicated to the issue:

concernedmembers.com/
 
ltwin said:
I have no idea. But there is a whole website dedicated to the issue:

concernedmembers.com/
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That website has some pretty interesting theories on how the New World Order conspiracy is secretly behind the placement of a pipe organ in the CoC church in Madison, TN and how Hitler was responsible for the NIV Bible.

As we say in Alabama, “This sounds crazier than a pet raccoon.”
 
exnihilo said:
I’m a bit confused by your question. Regarding the silence principle it seems that one reads the Bible. If they find an issue not mentioned in it then the determination is made that Scripture is silent concerning the matter. I think that has been well covered by me and that @Itwin did a nice job of summarizing the concept.
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My question is this: if Scripture is silent on , is the default position that is permitted or it is prohibited?

It appears that the answer is, sometimes it’s prohibited (say, with papacy. Church Z says that since there’s no mention of the papacy in Scripture we shouldn’t have one.)

And sometimes it’s permissible (say, with artificial birth control. Church Z now says that since there’s no mention of ABC in Scripture it’s not forbidden).

Does this not seem problematic to you as a Protestant to be able to hold both positions?
If it’s a both/and thing–I’m ok with that. can be prohibited if it’s not mentioned and can be permitted if it’s not mentioned. But who determines this? And based on what?
 
A
exnihilo said:
I agree that the Bible does not itself declare what books should be in it. I also agree that the Bible does not proclaim that all Christian knowledge is contained within it.
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Exactly. So how do you reconcile the above statements (I label as statements A for ease of reference) with your statement here (I label B for ease in reference):

B
exnihilo said:
The issue, for those that hold this principle, arises when something becomes an obligation that does not exist in the Bible.
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What I find disparate in your 2 comments above is: first you say that only things that are in the Bible must be obligatory.

Then you posted that it’s not a Biblical teaching.

And you make it obligatory for Christians to accept that, say, Hebrews is inspired, when you also affirm that the Bible doesn’t say that Hebrews is inspired. AND, as per your statement B, one ought not be obligated to believe that Hebrews is inspired.

Quite a paradox, eh?
 
exnihilo said:
I agree that a vote does not determine truth. But things aren’t so cut and dry. Why have ecumenical councils if votes do not determine truth? Why is the pope elected by the cardinals? Do Catholics believe that the wrong person could be elected pope?
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Because we believe that the Holy Spirit assists and directs our Magisterium into coming to the fullness of truth through the charism of infallibility.

I am quite certain that the AoG do not claim to have this charism of infallibility, thus, voting as a means of discerning truth seems to be an inutile form of doctrine development.
 
BrianH said:
So since Christians do not agree on all matters, what do you believe that means?
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I believe that, sadly, some Christians have divorced themselves from the faith given once for all to the Apostles.

Most stand in the tradition of Apollos, and are fervent in their faith, but are in need of being taken aside (as Priscilla and Aquila did) in order to receive the fullness of Truth.
 
My pastors in a Fundamentalist church often made comments to the effect that we believed only what was in the Bible. That was our defense against so many things, but it was not true. We didn’t believe some things in the Bible and we projected things that weren’t there.

We sometimes believed, depending on the pastor at the time, that it was wrong to go to movies, any movies. The thought was that being seen going into a theater could hurt our witness. I couldn’t tell you why. If questioned more, it was explained that a person seeing us would not know whether we were going to see a G movie or something vile. I suppose they never thought about the marquee. OK, find that in the Bible.

Drinking any alcohol was wrong. You’ll have a hard time squaring that with any number of Bible stories, but we explained. It was grape juice at Cana and at the Last Supper. No, the context does not even come close on that, but we worked around it.

Dancing was wrong. Never mind the examples in the Bible.

The bottom line for me is that a teaching that everything must be found in the Bible leads to cherry-picking verses. An old and now deceased friend once said many people bend the Bible to fit personal convictions.
 
PRmerger said:
I believe that, sadly, some Christians have divorced themselves from the faith given once for all to the Apostles.

Most stand in the tradition of Apollos, and are fervent in their faith, but are in need of being taken aside (as Priscilla and Aquila did) in order to receive the fullness of Truth.
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So be more specific. Every church or Christian that does not agree with the Catholic Church on all matters is what exactly?
 
PRmerger said:
Because we believe that the Holy Spirit assists and directs our Magisterium into coming to the fullness of truth through the charism of infallibility.

I am quite certain that the AoG do not claim to have this charism of infallibility, thus, voting as a means of discerning truth seems to be an inutile form of doctrine development.
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Christians have been told on this forum that they all decide for themselves (that everyone is their own Pope etc) and that has been criticized.
Christians are also criticized for voting now.
So is there anyway that you would not criticize decision making in other Christian churches outside of actually being a part of your church?
So isnt it true that you just do not agree with how anyone does things that is not part of your church? That is the central issue.
 
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