The Churches of Christ (non-institutional) - Common Beliefs

Common Beliefs

Because churches of Christ are autonomous with no central governing body, doctrine may vary between congregations. In general, these churches subscribe to the more conservative positions associated with churches of Christ in matters of authority, organization, and worship. Most congregations in this number can be differentiated from mainline churches by their strict adherence to the principle of church autonomy and by a differentiation of the role of the individual Christian and the church.

As a result, they oppose the following practices that became widespread in other churches of Christ during the mid-twentieth century, namely:

• Support from the church treasury for institutions such as Bible colleges or orphans' homes. Members of non-institutional churches note a distinction between the work assigned the individual Christian and that assigned to the local church collectively (citing passages such as 1 Timothy 5:16). While individuals are charged to "do good to all men," (Galatians 6:10), they believe that churches are explicitly assigned a limited number of duties (usually defined as evangelism, edification, and benevolence). They oppose a church giving its collective funds to an outside institution or setting up another under its control to do work which they believe is biblically assigned to the individual. For example, while they would refuse to give church funds to an orphans' home or soup kitchen, non-institutional churches would encourage individual members to help such causes.

• Churches pooling resources to perform work under the oversight of a single congregation or outside institution. Critics opposed to this practice say such cooperation did not exist in the first century times and violates the autonomy of the local church. They note that churches sometimes sent aid to each other, but say this practice was always from a single church to a single church for the benefit of members of the latter. No other arrangement for transfer of funds between churches appears in the New Testament. Thus, members of a non-institutional church would not authorize giving church funds to a missionary society or undertake a "sponsoring church" arrangement, a non-institutional church may send money to an individual preacher, as there are New Testament examples of this (Philippians 4:10-18; 1 Corinthians 9:7-14; 2 Corinthians 11:7-9).

• Church relief for non-Christians (some members define this term as those persons outside the church of Christ, according to Acts 2:47), especially as an evangelism tool. Critics of such aid say that every New Testament example of support of needy individuals by churches was of support of fellow Christians. They encourage individual members to seek out and personally help any persons in need, but say the church should provide support only to those it recognizes as faithful and needy Christians, per the New Testament examples. They reject 2 Corinthians 9:13 "the liberality of your contribution unto them and unto all" as an example, claiming that "all" means "all saints" rather than "all men".

• A church kitchen or "fellowship hall," as well as other forms of church-sponsored social activity. Distinguishing between the work of the church and that of individuals, members of non-institutional churches hold that social activity was an individual practice. They believe there is no scriptural support to use church funds to build a kitchen and eating facility. They encourage members to develop social activities with personal funds. In addition, they say the language of 1 Corinthians 11:22-34 forbids the eating of a common meal as a work of the church.