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Radical Restoration? 
Or, The New House-Church Denomination?
by Terry W. Benton

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not enjoy controversy. I love the peace of Christ, and the consolation of being in Christ. I love to think on things that are lovely.  I love God's nature. I love to get out in it and enjoy it.  So, it is hard to get me to change gears and focus on something that I do not enjoy.  However, there are those things that we have to do even when we don't like to do it, like changing diapers, or spanking a child that needs it, and engaging a controversial issue with a brother in Christ or a non-believer who attacks what you believe.

I am a preacher. I have not preached as long as F. LaGard Smith, nor have I written as much or spoken to as large of crowds as he has spoken to.  In the eyes of the brotherhood and the world, I am an unknown man of little stature.  There are others far more qualified and able to address these issues than I am.  Yet, I have search the internet for even a single voice that felt compelled to challenge the basic material that F. LaGard Smith put out in his most recent book, "Radical Restoration".  After reading his material I was wonderfully challenged, but also greatly dismayed and alarmed.  I saw some wonderful thoughts, but also some very subtle and dangerous errors.  I felt like I was in the garden with a wonderfully appealing tree in front of me and a voice urging me to partake of some craftily disguised fruit.  But, there was another voice urging me to be very cautious.  Many fatal errors are dressed in crafty robes, and there is always that voice in 2 Pet.2 that "promises liberty" when it only enslaves to another set of errors.  It is those errors that I want to address. 

I do not know F. LaGard Smith.  I suspect I would be intimidated by his vast, superior knowledge, and his reputation as an author.  I know that he grew up in non-institutional, conservative churches. His father preached at Huffman, AL., about eight miles from where I am preaching.  I do not believe, that if his father were alive today, that his father could endorse his son in what he is preaching.  I do not believe that his father would encourage LaGard to preach and practice what he is preaching today.  I'm almost sure that LaGard would acknowledge this as a fact.   Frank Smith was known as a preacher of the gospel in this area, and he could not conscientiously preach to liberal brethren without saying something about their errors.  Frank Smith would not be invited to preach at the same places that LaGard can preach at, and that is because the father and son have two different outlooks and concepts of biblical authority and its' applications.

 In the preface of LaGard's book, (p.10), he tells us his purpose was to study the Bible freshly and "report as objectively as possible what the New Testament tells us about first-century faith and practice".  I appreciate objectivity as much as the next fellow, but found some conclusions in LaGard's book that were not forced by scripture or necessary inference therefrom.  He admits that his conclusions have sent him on a journey and hopes it is a step in the right direction and hopes on "going still further"(p.11).  He admits he may well have "gone off the track" but hopes we will see that his "heart" was in the right place.

 On page 12 he asks a question that seems to me to be loaded with assumption.  He asked, "is it true, as we claim, that we are neither Catholic nor Protestant but the fully-restored primitive body of Christ?"   I am 47 years old. I have grown up in local, conservative churches of Christ, and I have NEVER heard such a proclamation.  Who is this "we" that he is talking about?  Who ever taught that the body of Christ needed "restoring"?  Who ever taught that the body of Christ was lost?  The body of Christ is not Catholic or Protestant, but all we (preachers and Christians) can do is restore people to God by preaching the truth.  If someone asked about the local church of which I am a part, do you think that local church is the "fully-restored primitive body of Christ", I would have to say "no".  I do not think that the church at Corinth (read about it in 1 Corinthians) was the "fully-restored primitive body of Christ".  The question is misleading.  Now, if someone were to ask if I thought the church I was assembling with was one that fits within bounds of authority and was scriptural in all it's together activities so that any Christian should be able to conscientiously participate with us, then I would say "yes".  LaGard's framing of the question revealed a deplorably, denominational concept of the "we" to whom he makes his appeal.  After we finish his book and his "we" is meeting in houses with no regular collection and a larger serving of communion bread and wine, will he say then that NOW "we are neither Catholic nor Protestant but the fully-restored primitive body of Christ?"  If he ever does make such a claim, you will know that it is just as denominational and untrue as his ideas before he got swept into the house-church denomination.

 The truth is that there is one body of Christ. It contains all the saved of all the ages.  We get in it by being personally restored to God.  We do not restore that church to the world. We restore the world to that unshakable kingdom.  It is also true that no local church is perfect or maintains a perfect model of anything "primitive".  The pattern of organization on a local scale can be obeyed or matched.  The elements of early worship can be obeyed and followed.  The truth can be proclaimed.  As we do this, we simply restore ourselves to God's eternal truth.  We do not form the "primitive body of Christ".  We simply yield to Him and become what He has always wanted people to become.  We can congregate on a local scale after the obedient patterns we find in His word, but we do not restore the primitive body of Christ.  It is fixed and unmovable.  We move ourselves in or out, but we do not restore the primitive body of Christ.

 On page 13, LaGard asks, "Do we, for example, observe the Lord's Supper in the same way as the early disciples?"  I don't know of anyone who would contend that the early disciples sat in lined pews and passed trays of bread around and small containers of juice around in the same manner as we do where I worship, but I DO contend that we observe the LORD'S Supper in the same way.  In other words, we take the bread like they took the bread. We take the cup of fruit of the vine like they did.  We may have a different way of breaking it and passing it, but we do what the Lord said in the same way that they did what the Lord said.  We find members also NOT doing it properly like some at Corinth did not really "discern the Lord's body" and thus were spiritually weak and sick.  I would take issue with LaGard that the larger meal around a table is more expedient and helpful.  Anything can become ritualized, even the ritual he would have in homes can lose power when disciples lose focus.  The answer is not to quit going to a meeting house, but to put your thoughts in the right place.  The answer is not to start eating a meal in homes, but to bring a spirit-filled heart into the assembly WHEREVER it is held.

Then he asks, "Are our assemblies anything like house-church worship in the first century?"  His questions are loaded.  He first assumes that all churches WERE "house-church"es, and then baits us with a feeling that we are missing something.  The answer is not that we need to go into smaller "house-churches".  You can be just as spiritually dead in a house-church as you are in a larger church that meets by a river, in an upper room, or in a synagogue, or a rented or bought meeting-house. 

 Then he asks another loaded question: "What would it be like today if we really and truly radically restored primitive Christian faith and practice?"  Well, the answer is that "we" would be radically changed people.  But, "we" can radically restore Christian "FAITH" to our hearts (personally) without leaving meeting-houses and larger places of assembly.  We can radically restore to our hearts primitive Christian faith and practice without making a meal out of the supper.  We can radically change by individually exercising faith.  We can sing with greater spirit, listen to the Bible lesson with greater interest, pray with greater fervency, and take the Supper with greater focus and thereby gain greater spiritual energy and enthusiasm without leaving a single building or altering the method by which we partake of the Supper.  The question LaGard asks seems to breed discontentment with externals (externals that are scriptural and legitimate) and offers something that can and often does become just as externally empty.  I've met in homes and found weak and strong members there. I've found the same situation with brethren meeting in larger buildings.  Will there be a time when all the buildings are empty and all disciples are meeting in homes that those people can truly say, "WE really and truly radically restored primitive Christian faith and practice?"  I don't doubt that some will be just as excited as when a group eagerly moves into their new building.  The newness of meeting in homes can wear off just as easily.  It is not the place, but the faith, and here is where we must place the emphasis.  There were "radical" Christians meeting in the upper room at Troas, and there were those who might tend to fall asleep.  The difference is what is in each Christian's heart.  We need not breed discontentment over the meeting place or the amount of memorial meal that is passed to us, but it is all in the faith we bring to each situation.

 There is a new house-church denomination. They pride themselves in NOT meeting in buildings and in NOT giving regularly, and they think their house assemblies make them true Christians.  But, they are simply a different denomination, and their faith and character is often no stronger and no more genuine than those who meet in buildings and take a small amount of bread and wine for memorial purposes.  They have simply denominated away from other sincere baptized believers.  They should be marked and avoided for dividing over expediencies that are lawful.  They pretend to have restored the primitive body of Christ, when they simply do not know what the body of Christ really is.  I caution the readers to read with caution, both sides of the issues.  But, please do not over-react to some unpleasant experience and decide to conveniently make the house-church methodology your new brand of denominationalism.

Terry's Website and E-Mail Address

www.pinelanechurchofchrist.com

terrywbenton@bellsouth.net