The Campbellites Are Coming

Next June a congregation of 68 families, most of them from Texas, and their minister, will begin a mass move to the unassuming town of Bay Shore, L.I., a New York City suburb chosen for what the migrants conceive to be a novel blend of wholesomeness and godlessness. The purpose of "Exodus--Bay Shore" is to give that part of Long Island its first "pure-gospel" church, and the move is being sponsored by one of the nation's few big made-in-U.S.A. religious groups--the evangelical, expansive (2,250,000 members) Churches of Christ,* which dot Texas, Tennessee and Southern California.

The exodus was planned as carefully as a corporation hunts out a new plant site. Evangelist Dwain Evans, 29, preacher of the proposed church, and a committee of elders scouted six other communities before choosing Bay Shore, which has the advantage of being near Long Island's aircraft and electronics plants. Recently, a number of corporations sent representatives to Dallas to interview members of the new congregation about jobs; a number of Long Island school boards similarly solicited teachers. But faith more than fortune lies behind the exodus. "It is the will of God," says Evans, "that all who are saved today should share the 'good news' and joy of their salvation."

No Christmas. The Churches of Christ may well be the most Biblebound of all American religious groups. "Where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent," says Hollywood Minister Harris Goodwin. The churches accept only the authority of Scripture --but they leave each member free to interpret Scripture as he chooses. Their five "avenues of worship" are singing (but always a cappella: the Bible does not authorize instruments), praying, communion (taken every Sunday), preaching and giving.

Since there is no explicit New Testament authorization for it, the churches celebrate neither Easter nor Christmas, have neither bishops, presbyters nor any central authority. Each congregation is autonomous, and ministers govern with the help of lay elders, seldom let anyone call them anything but mister.

Most older members of the churches disapprove of smoking, drinking and dancing, and usually frown on political liberalism as well. Nine-tenths of the churches are white-only, a few are integrated, and the rest Negro-only. Churches of Christ are wary of ecumenical dealings with other Protestant groups, and some will not cooperate with Crusader Billy Graham.

Pentecost & Pennsylvania. Claiming to be a movement rather than a denomination, the Churches of Christ trace their founding back to the first Pentecost. Historians generally date the origin of the churches from 1809, when the Rev. Thomas Campbell, a dissident Presbyterian minister from western Pennsylvania, founded a new "Christian Association" to bring the church back to the practices of New Testament times. The Campbellites eventually split into liberal and conservative camps over such issues as the right of pastors to use the title reverend and the introduction of organ music in church services. In 1906 the conservatives reported separately in a U.S. religious census as members of the Churches of Christ; the liberals kept the title that Campbell applied to his followers, Disciples of Christ.

As against the declining trend of fundamentalist churches in general the Churches of Christ have grown rapidly in recent years. Congregations willingly allot up to 30% of their budgets to aid missions and new churches; hundreds of churchlets have been spawned in such countries as Italy, Brazil and India. In the U.S., membership has more than doubled since 1952, and the Churches of Christ currently have a number of well-known laymen, including California Democratic Congressman B. F. Sisk, Singer Pat Boone, and onetime Preacher Billie Sol Estes. Church of Christ Evangelist B. C. Goodpasture, editor of Nashville's Gospel Advocate, says that the growth is because "we stay with the Bible. We have something to believe and we have something to tell."

What the churches say seems to reach home to men disillusioned by the dreams of progress and by the value of life's material rewards. "Those who think that the world will get better and better," warns Harrison Mathews, pastor of Austin's University Church of Christ, "are looking for something that will never exist. The peace that the Lord gives is an inward gift. The only stability is of the heart."

* Not to be confused with such major Protestant groups as the United Church of Christ (1,436,884 members) and the Disciples of Christ (1,797,466 members), or with dozens of smaller sects whose names variously involve the words church and Christ.

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