Unity Meetings on Instrumental Music - Very Troubling for churches of Christ

Mark Roberts

Over the last decade, a number of concerted efforts have been made to bring about “unity” between churches of Christ and Independent Christian Churches. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that ICC congregations teach and act remarkably like most churches of Christ, except that they employ instrumental music in worship. Several unity meetings and conferences on unity have been held. At a recent event preachers from “each side” exchanged Bibles. You read that correctly: men actually gave their personal Bible to a preacher on the other side of the issue. Despite all of this, the reality is that ICC churches and congregations of churches of Christ are still not united. Wonder why? I just completed reading about yet another unity discussion (this one at Freed-Hardeman University), and I believe I can identify three very real problems with having fellowship with churches that use instrumental music.

First, the real trouble with all of this is that the unity simply is not discussed biblically. In the scriptures, churches don’t have much fellowship one with another. Has no one noticed this? Churches can be in fellowship in matters of benevolence (see Acts 11:27-30), but there are no other recorded illustrations of congregations being in fellowship in any other way. Churches can have fellowship with a preacher (see Phil 4:15-16), but again, there is no record of churches fellowshipping other congregations in any way other than benevolent work. Therefore, even when congregations agree on everything they still aren’t in fellowship. Why? Because fellowship means “to be joint partakers in, to work together.” They aren’t working together, and they are not jointly partaking in something together, so they aren’t, scripturally speaking, in fellowship.

I suspect that what these unity meetings are really all about is creating a kind of “church” unknown to the New Testament. In the Bible the term “church” refers to all the saints of all time, living or dead. This is called the “universal church” (see Eph 5:23, 25). The only other use of the term “church” is to refer to a group of local Christians working together in that location (the “local church,” see 1 Thess 1:1). Thus the church is people, only people. It can never be anything else. But some from churches of Christ and the ICC seem to believe the church is made up of congregations. By their speech they betray this misunderstanding of what the church is and that misunderstanding is driving further error of every kind. They view the church as a coalition or network of congregations working together in agreement. Since some congregations disagree with one another, a breach has occurred and must be repaired. So step one is to fix the disagreement on pianos. All of this is nothing but the denominational idea of church and absolutely without any scriptural support. The church is composed of people not congregations! Yet these unity meetings want something more than the local church. They are trying to build a coalition of congregations that agree with one another on basic matters of Christianity. Unfortunately for these brethren, this is something the Bible knows nothing about, nor gives any plan for how to pull it off. Just think about it. If the Main Street church of Christ decides that instrumental music is okay after all, just exactly how does it go about having “unity” with the Elm Street Independent Christian Church? The Bible certainly doesn’t tell anyone how to do it! Again, the Bible doesn’t even talk about having unity with congregations that are in agreement, much less how to be unified with those in doctrinal error! So unity meetings and conferences are intent on building what the Bible doesn’t want constructed (a denominational network of congregations), and they are trying to do it without any biblical guidelines on how to build this thing God doesn’t want built anyway. That’s trouble!

Second, and equally troubling is what ICC people say about instrumental music at these unity meetings. For example, there is always much ado about “we are not here tell you that you’re wrong.” Well, why not? If we are binding what God has not then please take out your Bible and show us how we are in error. These meetings seem to breed an air of tolerance where it is socially unacceptable to say “You’re wrong. You may be sincere, but that statement/belief/doctrine is wrong and here is how we know it is wrong” as the Bible is opened. Yet Jesus told people they were in error without hesitation (see Matthew 22:29, well translated in the ESV as “You are wrong”). One cannot help but wonder how welcome Jesus and that kind of attitude would be at these unity meetings! Then someone always says something about how division is sinful and we all must repent of that sin. This appears to be a play along the lines of “I’m wrong on this subject but you are wrong on that subject so you can’t correct me and I can’t correct you and we’ll all be wrong together.” Sounds like we’ll all be lost together too, doesn’t it? Of course, not all division is wrong. When brethren add to God’s Word and corrupt the worship of the church faithful brethren will refuse to participate in such (see Eph 5:11). Next there will be talk about how evangelism is more important than arguing over pianos in worship. At the Freed-Hardeman meeting one fellow said “we are like two lifeguards who are in a fist fight on the beach while a swimmer is drowning.” Of course, from my perspective Christian churches may teach the truth on baptism’s necessity, but they only convert people to bring them into a sinful worship arrangement. That is pretty hard for me to commend. So if I saw a lifeguard who saved drowning people only to throw them in a cage with a grizzly bear, I probably would fight him! I’d rather saved people stay saved by doing what is right. Finally, someone will talk about how a piano is just an aid to singing like a pitch pipe. This is the best argument instrumentalists have but it fails because the piano is an unlawful addition. It is unlawful because it fundamentally changes the nature of the music being offered from what God specified in Ephesians 5:19 (acapella singing) to something completely different (instrumental music).

Third, the silence of ICC people makes things all the worse. The Independent Christian Church preachers and teachers who speak at these unity meetings disdain the idea of the “silence of the Scriptures.” By “silence of the Scriptures,” I am simply referring to the principle that when the Bible does not specifically condemn something we are not at liberty to practice it. Silence does not authorize or justify. We may only act when there is positive Bible authority for our practice (see Col 3:17; Hebrews 7:14). ICC folks don’t buy into that and so easily enjoy instrumental music. When all is said and done their basic reasoning is “The Bible doesn’t say we can’t, so we will.” But ICC folk apparently do believe in silence, because when asked what else would be “authorized” by such a principle of Bible interpretation they are silent. What about doughnuts and coffee on the Lord’s Table? The Scriptures certainly do not specifically forbid such. May we? The Scriptures do not forbid adding additional acts of worship either. Could we add Old Testament wave offerings, thank offerings and other sacrifices to our services? After all, they are mentioned in the Old Testament just like instrumental music. The Scriptures do not specifically forbid a certain group of people from becoming priests. Can we revive the Levitical priesthood and have a “high priest” preside over our worship? Of all these questions there is nothing but silence. No explanation is given as to how we’re going to let the piano in but keep every other kind of innovation out. That is troublesome, isn’t it?

These unity meetings have been going on for years now with predictable results. A number of liberal churches of Christ have surrendered on the instrumental music issue so they could form a denominational alliance with Christian churches and do work together. This didn’t happen because someone finally explained where the piano is in Ephesians 5:19. It happened because those brethren wanted to do this despite what the Bible teaches. Many meetings with Christian church people convinced them the ICC folks were nice (who ever said they weren’t?) and evidently that was more than enough excuse to go and do as they wanted. For others, all the talk about brotherly love, and that division is not God’s will does not change what Scriptures say. Ephesians 5:19 says “sing” not “play and sing.” This simply means that for those content with the Scriptures there cannot ever be any fellowship or working together with groups that practice error in their worship.