Church Cooperation
Cooperation is essential to the success of any enterprise in which two or more are involved. The lack of it may cause failure.
I. Defined And Illustrated
The term, "cooperation" is composed of two words: "co", meaning together or with; "operation", meaning, a working. It means a working together of two or more units in the production of a common effect or the achievement of a common purpose.
By the providence of God all things work together -cooperate - for the good of them who are called according to his purpose. (Rom. 8: 28.) Joseph's brothers, the Ishmaelities, Potiphar, the baker, the butler, the years of plenty, the famine and all revealed events in the life of Joseph in Egypt cooperated or worked together in attaining God's purpose with his people. (Gen. 50:19-20.)
Paul and Apollos cooperated in the ministry of the word. Paul planted and Apollos watered. (I Cor. 3:6.)
But all these are examples of cooperation of individuals and events. The subject assigned to me is "Church Cooperation"; therefore, I must direct your attention to what the New Testament teaches on the cooperation of churches as such.
Some methods and kinds of church cooperation are scriptural and right; some are unscriptural, anti-scriptural and wrong.
The Bible teaches that church cooperation is of God (II Cor. 8); but it does not teach that every kind of church cooperation is of God. If it did so teach, we would be forced to the conclusion that the missionary society kind, and all denominational types are of God.
Some marriages are scriptural and right; they are of God. (Gen. 2: 18-25.) But this does not mean that every kind of marriage is of God. (Matt. 19: 9.) Baptism is ordained of God (Acts 2: 38); but the Bible does not teach that every kind of baptism is acceptable to God. (Acts 19: 1-5.) Objection to certain kinds of marriages and to certain kinds of baptism does not justify the accusation that the objector is anti-marriage or anti-baptism. Objection to certain kinds of church cooperation does not justify the accusation that the objector is anti-cooperation.
II. How New Testament Churches Cooperated In Benevolent Work
In order to supply the needs of poor saints in Judea when the Judean churches were not financially able to provide for their own poor, the church at Antioch sent relief by the hand of Barnabas and Saul who delivered it to the elders of the church or the churches where the need existed. (Acts 11: 27-30.)
During a long famine the church in Jerusalem relieved funds from several other churches for the poor saints in the receiving church "that there may be equality" or mutual freedom from want. (Cor. 16: 1-4; II Cor. 8 and 9; Acts 24:17; and many other passages.)
These two are the only examples in the New Testament of churches donating funds from their treasuries to other churches. In both of these the receiving churches were unable to provide adequately for the needs of their own members, and the design or purpose of the donations was that there "may be equality" or mutual freedom from want. Without exception, the receiving church was an object of charity, and the contribution from other churches stopped when its needs were supplied. Paul stated clearly that these donations were for "this present time" of need in the receiving church, and that the giving and receiving would be reversed, if the giving church should become an object of charity, and the receiving church bad abundance. (II Cor. 8:14.)
This does not mean that every member of the Jerusalem church was an object of charity, but those who were not were unable financially to care for those who were. Of course, this made the church an object of charity. Therefore, in the light of these New Testament examples we conclude that it is scriptural and right for churches to cooperate in supplying the needs of a church that is financially unable to furnish the needs of its own indigent, whether those needs are food, clothing, shelter or a place to worship; for an adequate place to worship is as much a physical necessity as an adequate place in which to sleep and eat.
New Testament churches did not "cooperate" in turning their funds over to a human institution, and placing it in control of a work of benevolence which God has assigned to the churches and which the churches themselves should manage. When a church does such a thing it destroys its autonomy and surrenders control of its resources to that which the Lord did not plant.
Churches may buy the products or services of any institution. But donating money from its treasury to another institution is not parallel at all to buying services or products from it. When a church buys the services of an eleemosynary institution, it names the patient or inmate to be served, designates the treatment and kind of services to be received, and has authority to take the inmate out of that institution, stop the service and place the indigent in another institution, at any time it sees fit to do so; it does not surrender its autonomy or the oversight of its resources. When a church simply donates its money to one of these institutions, it can do none of these things; it surrenders its autonomy to the extent of the amount contributed.
New Testament churches did not cooperate in the contribution of funds to enable the receiving church to operate a brotherhood benevolent project maintained by a predetermined and perpetual begging campaign for the control of the resources of other churches, as some of the "sponsoring churches" of ecumenical benevolence are now doing. It is far better for a church to be anti-cooperative in a project of this kind than to be anti-scriptural in supporting it.
Sending contributions to a poor church to make it possible for the receiving church to do its own work in caring for its own poor is not parallel at all to sending contributions to a church to enable the receiving church to operate and control a work of charity to which all churches are related equally. In the former the contributions stop when the needs of the poor church are supplied; in the latter there is no stopping place this side of Rome.
Contributions to a poor church to make it possible for the members to have an adequate place in which to worship God have a stopping place; the contributions stop when the house is finished. But contributions to make the receiving church the sole authority in a meeting house building-project for poor churches all over the world is a form of centralized control of church resources that has no stopping place and, therefore, is Romish to the core.
III. New Testament Churches Cooperated In Evangelistic Work.
While Paul preached to the church and to others in Corinth, "other churches" cooperated with one another and with Paul by sending "wages" to him. (II Cor. 11:8.) They sent his "wages" directly to him, (Phil. 1:5; 2:25; 4:15-18; II Cor. 11:8-9.)
The church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to preach and to teach the word to the church and others in Antioch. (Acts 11:22.) Therefore, it is scriptural and right for churches to cooperate in sending and supporting gospel preachers all over the world.
New Testament churches cooperated in their search for truth and in discussing and settling their doctrinal differences. Some believed and taught that the Gentiles must be "circumcised after the custom of Moses" to be saved. Others opposed that doctrine with "no small dissension". The issue was clearly drawn. Brethren were lining up on both sides and some were playing both ends against the middle, or riding the fence. That class stood condemned, and Paul told them so. (Gal. 2:11-14.) Churches were perplexed, and serious trouble was brewing. The question was settled and unity restored by an act of church cooperation and not by quarantine, not by name calling, not by ignoring the issue and attacking one another personally, not by refusing one side an opportunity to be heard, not by suppression. The church at Antioch sent men to Jerusalem. The church at Jerusalem received them graciously, and then followed an honorable discussion of the real issue in the light of God's word. Speeches were made and there was "much questioning" by men on both sides. Then James spoke and presented Amos 9:11-12 which revealed the truth on the issue; agreement was reached and reported by letter and by reliable witnesses to other churches (Acts 15:1-29.) If the "sponsoring churches" today would engage in this kind of cooperation, for which they have a divinely approved example, and quit begging churches to cooperate in surrendering control of their work and resources to a centralized agency, for which there is no scriptural authority, they might save themselves from total apostasy.
New Testament churches cooperated in sending literature from church to church. The Jerusalem church sent letters to many churches. (Acts 15:30; 16:4.) Regarding certain literature Paul said, "And when this epistle hath been read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye also read the epistle from Laodicea." (Col. 4:16.) Therefore, church cooperation in sending tracts, song books, Bibles, or any other gospel literature anywhere in the world is right.
Christians as individuals have organized and utilized publishing houses, religious magazines, Bible colleges and schools, secular businesses and many other human institutions for the furtherance of the gospel and the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. But New Testament churches did not "cooperate " in turning over their resources to a centralized human establishment to be used in evangelizing the world and doing a work which the Lord assigned to the churches. That churches may buy the products or services of such establishments when needed, has never been a point of controversy. But when churches donate funds from their treasuries to these human institutions, they surrender their autonomy by placing another in control of their resources and work which they themselves should manage. A church bought a meeting house from a denomination, but that differs radically from donating funds to that denomination. Paul could buy meat sold in a temple of idols, and eat it to satisfy his hunger; but that was not analogous to donating to the temple of idols. (I Cor. 10:25.)
A few churches which call themselves "sponsoring churches" have launched projects in the field of evangelism for a work to which all churches are equally related by divine assignment. The elders hire themselves at higher salaries than any other employer would pay them: they travel over the nation stirring up trouble and begging other churches to turn over their funds to them for these enterprises which they knew from the beginning they could not support without control of the resources of other churches.
For example, the elders of the Highland Church in Abilene, Texas, were persuaded by a couple of inexperienced young men to assume the "sponsorship" of a nation wide radio program. These elders, already inflated almost to the bursting point with egoism, were easily and quickly convinced that their superior "ability" and "leadership" "obligated" them to seek control of resources of all the churches in the world. But let them express their opinion of their own "ability" to oversee more than the Lord ever assigned to any group of elders, in the words of their own spokesman, Brother Ernie Harper, who says he submits his articles to these elders for their approval before he publishes them:
"OUR OBLIGATIONS — Here is where you brethren have missed the point entirely in your argument. While elders or brethren do not have the right to obligate themselves beyond their ability to meet, this does not mean they cannot use their leadership to encourage others to come to their rescue. If a group of elders and the church where they are do not have the financial ability to do what needs to be done, but they do have the leadership to direct such a work, and they do have the ability to get the help needed, they are obligated to get this help, else they have failed in their stewardship in the church of the Lord." (E. R. Harper in Gospel Guardian of January 6, 1955).
No Roman Bishop has ever made a more Romish claim than that. Soul destroying doctrines are called "damnable heresies" in II Peter 2:1. How can any heresy be more "damnable" or more destructive than the doctrines set forth by E. R. Harper and the Highland elders? According to their own words, they are "obligated" by the God of the universe to do everything they can to obtain the oversight and control of the work and resources of all the other churches in the world, if they think they have the "ability" and "leadership" to do the job, "else they have failed in their stewardship in the church of the Lord"!
The Roman Catholic system of centralized control was almost 600 years in becoming the full-grown "man of sin." (II Thess. 2:3.) But in less than 60 years the Highland heresy can become a full grown "man of sin", if the brotherhood is led to believe in it.
The Highland elders or their successors, through the flattery of the riders of the band-wagon, might some day become so self-opinionated and conceited as to think that a nation wide radio and television preaching project, such as Herald of Truth, supported by the money of a thousand churches, does not exhaust their "ability" and superior "leadership". Then according to their own "damnable heresies", as quoted above, they must do everything within their power to get control of the work and resources of more churches, till they think they have reached the limit of their "ability" and "leadership", "to do what needs to be done", "else they have failed" in their duty to the Lord. Building meeting houses is a work that "needs to be done". Therefore, if the Highland elders or their successors feel they still have some "ability" and "leadership" left, then they are "obligated" to try to become the sole authority in a meeting house-building project for all the churches of the world. If all that does not exhaust their "leadership" and "ability", they must seek the oversight of other work that "needs to be done". Supplying song books, tracts, Bibles, and other literature for churches all over the world is another work that "needs to be done". Therefore, they would be "obligated" to try to get control of that work. Feeding, clothing, and housing the poor saints all over the world is another good work that "needs to be done". They must get control of this work of all the churches of the world, if they think they still have some "ability" left, or "they have failed" in their stewardship. And on and on they must go with no stopping place this side of Rome or short of a deflation of the ego of these elders and their successors; and as they see it, the churches have no right to deflate their ego, or to restrict or stifle their "ability". Yet E. R. Harper claims that he cannot understand why some call his "heresies" Romanism. He seems to know nothing of the history of the great apostasies of the past.
If every church had retained control of its own work and resources, and had respected the divinely prescribed conditions under which one church may contribute funds from its treasury to another church (sending donations only when the receiving church was an object of charity and stopping the contributions as soon as the need in the receiving church was met) the Roman Hierarchy could never have come into existence; because centralization and control of the work and resources of the churches is the very essence of Romanism. If the New Testament conditions under which one church may donate funds from its treasury to another are not restrictive and binding, then the Lord has not legislated at all as to the conditions under which one or a thousand or all churches may turn the control of their work and resources to another church, and the churches of Christ are at sea without chart or compass, and both the Vatican Church in Rome and the Highland Church in Abilene, Texas, are right in their identical efforts at centralization, and no man has the right to object.
But both the Highland Church and the Vatican Church are wrong. The "sponsoring church" system of centralization of church work and resources as set forth in the "Highland heresy" is unscriptural, anti-scriptural and sinful for several reasons: (1) In all that is revealed in the New Testament of the missionary activities of the churches, there is nothing that even remotely resembles it. (2) It violates the New Testament principle of local church autonomy. (3) It sows discord among brethren, splits churches and shows a lack of respect for the authority of God's word. (4) It would force every puffed up, conceited and self-opiniated eldership on earth to hire themselves at greater salary than they could get from any other source and to launch a begging campaign for the funds of other churches. It is the exact kind of "cooperation" that inevitably led to the first great apostasy of the churches and to the "man of sin" which Paul clearly condemned in II Thess. 2:1-7).