One In Jesus

Would the instrumental churches impose the instrument on the rest?

Boles continues his arguments —

The other alternative that many took, and still advocate, is to place the organ in the “area of silence” or in the field of expediency. But if there is no stronger reason for using the instrument than the opinions and judgments of men, it is sinful to force the use of the instrument in worshiping upon God’s people.

Even today, there remains a carefully cultivated resentment against 19th Century instrumental churches that forced their members to either sing with an instrument or change congregations. But those fights are over 100 years old today. They were decades old in Boles’ day (future post coming with more detail). No one at that unity meeting was seeking to impose instrumental music on anyone. The goal was for the a cappella churches to accept instrumental congregations as sister churches, not to force unity of worship styles. Continue reading →

My favorite conservative preacher — and the newly minted editor of the Gospel Advocate — G. A. Tidwell posted this comment:

The best position on this issue [inclusion of instrumental congregations in the Churches of Christ] was well stated by my predecessor, H. Leo Boles in 1939.

http://www.therestorationmovement.com/unity1.htm

The link takes the reader to a 1939 speech given by H. Leo Boles to a unity meeting between the instrumental and non-instrumental churches in the Restoration Movement. Boles was editor of the Gospel Advocate and a grandson of frontier Restoration preacher “Raccoon” John Smith.” The Movement had, of course, split over the issue, beginning with the “Sand Creek Address and Declaration” in 1889, with the split growing so wide that by 1906 David Lipscomb, then editor of the Gospel Advocate, advised the U.S. Census to count the a cappella Churches of Christ as a different denomination from the instrumental churches. Continue reading →