1. Free As Sons
   
2. Does "Go Ye" Mean "Go Me?"
   
3. Are We Really Born Again?
   
4. The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel
   
5. Silence Says Something
   
6. Body Language
   
7. Repentance Before Faith
   
8. I Wonder
   
9. Can I Know?
   
10. Ultimate Logical Conclusions
    
11. Errors in Peter's Sermon
    
12. Did Timothy Need Admonition?
    
13. Jesus' Youth Sermon For Adults
    
14. Why Didn't Paul Reform?
    
15. Christmas
    
16. Let The Unmarried Marry
    
17. A Dialect of Division
    
18. Our Traditions
    
19. Adding Our Safeguards
    
20. According To The Pattern
    
21. A Creed In The Deed
    
22. Samuel Did Not Know The Lord!
    
23. Response From Our Readers
    
24. Cries Of A Troubled Church
    
25. Sharing Without Fellowship
    
26. I Joined A Church
    
27. Open Membership
    
28. Another Last Will And Testament
    
29. Sad Thoughts About Church Growth
    
30. My Four Retirement Homes
    
31. Hook's Points: A Potpourri
    

Do you speak in a dialect? Probably, very few of us would answer in the affirmative. The language of each person seems to him or her to be the standard vernacular; all who differ speak in a dialect. Because of isolation from others, a people may think very sincerely that they speak the pure language when, in fact, they have developed their distinctive dialect. As that was true while I was growing up, your pond was our tank; others cooked beans in a stewer, but we used a steer; others cooked by a recipe while we followed a receipt, and we used a monkey ranch to adjust the plow. To us, that was the pure English!

There is a pure speech which fosters the unity of God's people, but when a group isolates itself from all others who seek to serve Christ, a dialect of division begins to develop into a sort of argot language. Being brought up in a very exclusivistic Church of Christ, I spoke the dialect of division. Some of it was unintentional, yet much of it was an intentional effort to distinguish the Church of Christ from other denominations. Some of it was veiled language to make our stance less perceptible and offensive to the outsider, but it was a jargon understood by the insider. Many of our expressions employed good terminology but were given a nuance that the indoctrinated would understand as exclusivistic.

Since I have renounced sectarianism and no longer seek to isolate myself from other disciples, I have come to realize how shocking some of my religious language was. Perhaps, you are already aware of the sectarian terminology that I shall review here. I hope so. I shall use we to make my points though I seek to eliminate divisive terminology from my speech.

In the bulletin of the Anytown Church of Christ, you may read some such declaration as this: "The church of Christ is a fellowship of Christians endeavoring to restore the New Testament church. The Lord's church is the brotherhood of all believers. As there is only one true church, it is free from sectarian divisions." That is a nice, solid statement, isn't it? The whole world should be impressed with the unity that we promote!

What is meant by "the church of Christ?" First, it is the church of Christ, and that is us-our segment of the church. Then we mentally equate the church of Christ with the Church of Christ. When we mention the church of Christ, there is an understood exclusion of all Baptists, Pentecostals, and Presbyterians. It is just the Church of Christ. But which Church of Christ? We have a score of them to choose from.

Some groups put church of Christ on their signs and letterheads, seeking to avoid the distinctive proper name Church of Christ. But that makes church of Christ a proper and distinguishing name, and proper nouns should be capitalized. By such evasive language, we are fooling no one but ourselves. And some of us are catching on!

"A fellowship of Christians"-great! But who are these Christians? Only those in the Church of Christ! Not a Baptist in it! Only those in the Church of Christ are Christians, and we are rather picky about admitting that there are Christians in some divisions of the Church of Christ. This fellowship of Christians is really a fellowship only of those in our particular sect of the Church of Christ. Thus, we use the beautiful word fellowship as a euphemism for sect. The dialect of division. How many times have you heard some pious person affirm, "I was a Baptist for twenty years; then I learned the truth and became a Christian"?

In saying that we are restoring the New Testament church, we are saying that none of the bodies outside the Church of Christ is a restoration of the church. Only that group of which the writer is a part is a restoration. Even other Churches of Christ have missed it. It is a rationale to justify a separate division called the Church of Christ.

What do we mean by New Testament church? It is the one produced by the New Testament, isn't it-the one that the writer is a member of, to the exclusion of all others? The New Testament and the New Testament scriptures are not the same thing. The New Testament (or covenant, or agreement) is not a book of writings. The church is produced when the gospel is believed and obeyed and the Lord adds us by saving us. That is when we accept his new agreement to save us by grace through faith in Christ. The New Testament writings were given many years after the church was formed to guide those who had accepted the new covenant; so, the scriptures do not produce it. All Christian bodies claim to follow the New Testament scriptures, even as the Church of Christ does, but they do not all demonstrate an equal amount of bigotry in extolling their exclusive claims. Besides, the church is never referred to as the New Testament church in the inspired writings.

In our jargon, we commonly refer to the Lord's church as being identical with whatever sect of the church of Christ we are in. Even the glorious word, brotherhood, by the nuance we give it, is made to mean our group, our division, our sect. In speaking of the brotherhood of believers, we, as insiders, know that we are not even counting the martyrs and reformers as having been believers because they were not Church of Christ believers.

When we speak of the one, true church, we are thinking of the body of which we are members. To say that the Church of Christ is the one, true church free from sectarian divisions is preposterous. We have sprouted another "one, true church" just about every decade for more than a century. Such a dialect of division can only develop in a people isolated from the mainstream who listen to themselves for patterns of speech.

Many of us in the Church of Christ admit that all the divisions growing out of the Stone­Campbell Movement are in the Lord's church, except for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In whatever segment one is in, he usually accepts all on his right, but he rejects all on his left, branding them as "brothers in error," at best, as though there is some other kind of brothers. There is more acceptance of a group if it is a Church of Christ; but if some other name is used, such as Christian Church, that is a different story. Again, the designation of our sectarian groups is a part of our argot, the language of a clique or closely knit group. Among those of the Stone­Campbell heritage, the various groups are commonly described in derogatory terms as anti­this, anti­that, non­this, non­that, mainline, digressive, instrumental, premillennial, etc. in order to make sure that each sect is distinguished adequately and to conveniently blame them for dividing the church. Each group maintains its own brotherhood and fellowship.

In our jargon, a false teacher is any teacher of error, that error being any doctrine that the denouncer disagrees with. The denouncer is not a false teacher; he teaches no error! Our preachers are not false teachers, but they are faithful, loyal, and sound preachers.

In stirring the congregation to evangelism (mostly proselytizing), we still hear the preacher declare that there are only 300 Christians, for example, in the local community of 20,000 people. Of course, he is excluding all who are not of his persuasion. "There is not a single church in that great city of half a million lost souls," means that there is no church of our distinction. "The gospel has never been taken into that city" means that no Church of Christ preacher has ventured there. There may be countless Bibles there and other Christian groups who beat us there.

Where The Saints Meet is an address directory published by Firm Foundation in 1984. In order to include all the meeting places of the saints throughout the world, the book must be of tremendous size, mustn't it? What a gigantic task to gather all that information! But don't get too excited, yet. It does not include the Catholics, Christian Churches, Baptists, Assemblies of God, or any other than Churches of Christ. In fact, the book only makes the claim that it is "a directory of the congregations of the Churches of Christ." So, very quickly, it identifies the saints that meet as the congregations of the Churches of Christ!

There is another amazing thing about this directory of the one, true church. If you will notice the code by each listing, then refer back to the key to the coding, you will be able to determine which of the sixteen divisions due to doctrinal differences that particular congregation is part of. Sixteen distinguished groups make up the one church and include all the saints. And there you have the sum total, all listed in one paperback of 394 pages, so you will not have to look further for meeting places of the saints.

If I give a different meaning than you do to steer, tank, receipt, and ranch, it is no big deal. I have about as much right to my mother dialect as you do to yours. When I take terms, descriptions, and definitions that apply to Christ's one, universal church and limit their meaning to a small division of that church, then I have committed an inexcusable offense. That is what we have done in our dialect of division.

When I was baptized into Christ, the Lord added me to his one, universal body, which is not a sect, division, or denomination, but includes all who are in Christ. When I limit my fellowship to a group divided from others whom the Lord has added, I become a part of a sect, due to my judgmental, sectarian attitude. When I give this group a name to distinguish it from others in Christ, I make it a denomination.

To name is to denominate; to denominate is to name. When I give limited meaning to good terms in order to justify and maintain my exclusive, sectarian, denominational division of the Lord's body, I develop a dialect of division.

"Thy speech betrayeth thee!"