The Church of Christ's Authorization Fallacy

Many Church of Christ brethren claim that religious actions, especially those related to worship, must be "authorized" by the New Testament before they can be regarded as acceptable to God. I've never found this argument convincing despite being raised in the Church of Christ and attending a CoC college. However, it wasn't until recently that I decided to dissect the idea, which I refer to as the "authorization argument," and determine why I've never found it convincing. I'm not trying to undermine the beliefs and practices of the Church of Christ here, I'm just attempting to deconstruct one particularly bad defense of those beliefs and practices. 

I believe the authorization argument is false, if not simply unintelligible, and there are four major reasons I believe this: (1) the Bible doesn't use authorization language nor claim our worship should only contain authorized elements, (2) the argument has no precedent in historical theology outside a particular branch of the American Restoration Movement, (3) it's selectively and unevenly enforced among those who believe it, and (4) its perceived explanatory power is basically just a semantic trick.  

The unofficial Church of Christ motto is "speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent," [1] and yet one of the pillars of contemporary conservative Church of Christ hermeneutical theology is an authorization argument that's nowhere found in the New Testament. The construction of an entire hermeneutical system, which the authorization argument is, requires justification via numerous clear biblical passages demonstrating that it should be used. However, the passages mustered by those who support the authorization argument are few and taken out of context.

The most often cited of these passages is Revelation 22:18-19: "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book." However, the passage itself makes clear that John wasn't advocating a general system of Bible-wide authorization. He was condemning specific alterations to the prophetic predictions recorded in his book. 

Another oft cited passage is 2 John 9 which talks about following the commandments of Jesus: "Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son." The verse says Christians shouldn't try to go beyond Jesus' commands, specifically the command to love one other, but it says nothing about authorization or proving that actions must be authorized.

Probably the strongest New Testament support for the authorization argument is 1 Corinthians 4:6: "I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another." However, when read in context, it's obvious the verse has nothing to do with authorization. It's simply instructing Christians not to hastily judge the personal righteousness of other Christians. [2] 

The Strong's Exhaustive Concordance records zero instances of the word "authorize" or "authorized" in the King James Version (KJV). The English Standard Version's (ESV) New Testament uses the word "authorized" once in Luke 3:13 when Jesus instructed tax collectors not to take more money than they were authorized to take. The New International Version (NIV) records zero instances of either word in the New Testament, and all four of its Old Testament references are unrelated to our topic (three in Ezra and one in Jeremiah). Nowhere in the New Testament is the verification of acts through a system of authorization written about. If the Church of Christ is going to speak where the Bible speaks, it cannot construct hermeneutical systems that don't conform to the language of the New Testament. 

Considering the authorization argument's absence from the New Testament, it's not surprising that it's also absent from historical Christian theology. The Church's early writers, the Early Church Fathers, never talked about religious practice in terms of authorization. These writers worked during the first several centuries after the Church's founding, and they witnessed its transformation into the high church tradition we now associate with Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Yet, these writers never opposed this transformation by demanding biblical authorization for religious innovations. Many of them questioned various innovations, but they never did so on the basis of authorization. Thousands of denominations now exist across the globe, and yet only the Church of Christ uses the authorization argument to defend its doctrines. The truth is never decided by popular vote, but humility demands that we reevaluate our logic if our ideas aren't found in the Bible, the Early Church Fathers, or any denomination within Christendom. In consideration of the lack of precedent for the authorization argument, it behooves its defenders to provide strong evidence in its favor. 

Even those who claim to believe in the authorization argument never consistently apply its logic in their own practice. The best example of this phenomenon surrounds the use of instruments in worship. Instruments are often rejected with the claim that God never authorized their use in worship (because only singing is authorized). However, other aids like songbooks, pitch pipes, PowerPoints, song leaders, and sound systems are almost never rejected. Another example of inconsistency is the claim that the Lord's Supper can only be observed on Sunday (despite Jesus establishing it on a Thursday). The authorization crowd claims no other days of observance have been authorized. However, the same people who make this argument hold mid-week Bible studies that include three of the other "acts of worship" which are connected with the Sunday Lord's Supper service. [3] The institution of a permanent weekly monetary collection on the first day of the week is nowhere authorized in the Bible, and the passage often cited to claim its authorization, 1 Corinthians 16:2, [4] was written about a special temporary collection for a specific purpose (relief aid for struggling Jewish Christians in Palestine). Most of the authorization argument's supporters claim that giving on Sunday is a command that must be observed for a person to be pleasing to God, but the verse they use to authorize this "act of worship" is contextually unrelated to our modern weekly collection. Clearly, the evidential base line constituting authorization for various religious practices is in constant flux. 

The claim that the authorization argument is unevenly applied is often dismissed in three ways: (1) X is an addition to worship while Y is only an aid to worship; (2) God authorizes in three ways: command, example, necessary inference; and (3) this/my interpretation of the authorization argument is commonsense logic. Each of these three explanations can be summarized as semantic tricks. They serve as intellectual cover by making just enough sense to bog down discussions until opponents retreat in confusion. 

Argument (1) claims that "additions" and "aids" constitute opposing categories. However, there's no reason additions can't also be aids. There is no Christian denomination that uses instruments without singing, and those who use instruments in worship believe they aid the singing. The use of PowerPoints and graphics during sermons can be equivocated with the use of instruments. In both cases an "addition," instruments and visual graphics, accompanies an "act of worship," singing and preaching, and yet most Church of Christ members claim the instrument is an addition but the PowerPoint is only an aid. How is adding graphic pictures to preaching categorically different than adding instrumental music to singing? The difference is merely semantic. [5] 

Argument (2) involves "command, example, and necessary inference," and it's so convoluted it's hard to sensibly unpack. This is the CoC's "threefold hermeneutic." The Bible never mentions nor implies that it should be read in this way, and the idea was formulated by a preacher named Moses Lard in the mid-1800s. There's little reason to believe the threefold hermeneutic is anything more than a nineteenth century concoction. Why should we interpret the Bible through a threefold hermeneutic rather than a fourfold one? The entire framework is largely arbitrary, and it's designed to justify the authorization argument. [6] 

Finally, argument (3) is that some specific interpretation of the authorization argument is simply logical commonsense. This claim is an official logical fallacy called the "commonsense fallacy (part of "alleged certainty"). However, the authorization argument can't be commonsense because almost nobody outside the Church of Christ acknowledges its legitimacy. In my experience, the commonsense explanation is often employed by older Church of Christ members whose exposure to different ideas has been limited. The lack of intellectual diversity in their lives often leads them to imagine that their biblical interpretation is common to all honest people. 

I'm not trying to discredit the Church of Christ's beliefs and practices, but I am trying to discredit a particularly fallacious argument used to support those beliefs and practices. The faster we discard the authorization argument the faster Church of Christ theology can begin moving in a healthier and more convincing direction. [7] The primary problem with the authorization argument is that it has almost no biblical foundation, and any theological system or hermeneutic that's not articulated in the Bible will lead to erroneous thinking. The Church of Christ is right about many things, but we can't continue building our theology on faulty logic. Whatever we build on sand will inevitably collapse. 

 

NOTES

[1] "Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent" was coined by Thomas Campbell in a speech delivered in 1809. 

[2] I chose these three verses because they were cited to defend the authorization argument in a House to House article. Other passages are cited as well, but all of them are irrelevant in similar ways. 

[3] The five acts of worship: singing, praying, preaching/teaching, giving, Lord's Supper. 

[4] "On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come." 

[5] It could be said that adding projected graphics to the sermon is more of an addition to worship than adding instruments to acapella singing because the presentation of art and illustration is arguably an entirely different communication medium than giving a verbal speech (preaching). Instruments and singing have always been associated with each other, but graphic art has rarely been associated with oratory until modern times. 

[6] This dismissal of the threefold hermeneutic is somewhat oversimplified, but the general idea is valid.

[7] One example of a healthier approach is to oppose instruments on historical and practical grounds. The church didn't use instruments for over 700 years, and they typically dilute the saint's singing voices. This is a more convincing and appealing argument than a convoluted discussion about authorization.