Stages of Religious Fellowships

by Ed Harrell

B. C. Goodpasture fits neatly into a sociological model of second-generation religious leaders. One can trace a religious group's evolution through changes in skills from first- to second-generation leaders.

From truth-oriented to group-oriented

First-generation religious leaders are committed to ideas and are often forced to abandon their parent groups because of that commitment. Like the evangelists of New Testament days, they preach their message regardless of the consequences. The second generation shows a growing concern about the good of the group, though ostensibly doctrine must still be measured by truth. But the emphasis changes. Instead of the church growing out of the truth, the truth becomes the church's possession. The type of man demanded for the first work is a preacher, a Bible student, a defender of the truth; for the second, a conciliator and manager.

From open controversy to closed controversy

The method used to spread the message in a young religious movement, including the New Testament church, is open confrontation. In both the first century and more recent times, the spread of the gospel has been marked by open discussion and debate. When one is truth-oriented, he has nothing to defend except his teachings, and he has no tools for fighting except his ideas. When one’s religion becomes institutional, other forces come into play.

Open debate (even limited debate) may no longer seem wise if it disturbs the group's peace and threatens the health of institutions.

Furthermore, institutions, capable of exerting pressure indirectly, exercise leadership that can be totally divorced from ideology. In short, B. C. Goodpasture’s leadership, it seems to me, begins a second period of religious controversy in the churches of Christ in the twentieth century, a period marked by the use of new techniques. Foy Wallace scorched heretics; Goodpasture warned them that they would lose their position in the brotherhood.

From self-conscious rejection of the society to self-conscious acceptance of the society

First-generation religious leaders generally disdain the society they live in and openly attack that society's dominant religious institutions. This sense of world-separation and its accompanying call for conversion is clearly present in the New Testament and in the early history of the restoration movement. Christians knew that the world considered them fanatics; they were not ashamed to be thought strange; they forged no truces with the dominant religions of their time. Second-generation leaders are more apt to self-consciously seek peace with their society as the churches come to crave respectability.... “Plain” preachers and those of the next generation who are no longer “plain” generally do not say the same things.

From builders to preservers

At some point in the life of every religious group, evangelists become confused with pastors, evangelistic fervor turns to revivalistic concern, debaters and polemicists turn to brotherhood managers, and local churches become little more than sources of money for promoters. Such changes call for a shift to managerial leadership.

In the 1950s, preserving the churches of Christ empire became central to many people's thinking. There was still a will to work, but it was directed toward preserving and improving the image of what the previous generation had hewn out of society. There is a vast difference, though not always an apparent one, between preaching the gospel and converting sinners and in promoting the church of Christ.

Seeing Ourselves in Our Leaders

At every time, some men have been widely visible to the Christians of their day. It has always been treacherous to view such men as “brotherhood leaders,” since such thinking almost inevitably conjures up a “brotherhood” to lead. But it also assigns a distorted weight of importance to such men; we tend to overestimate their influence, to see things in terms of what they have done to us.

Actually, these highly visible men are more like speedometers than steering wheels. They are less about taking us somewhere than about telling us where we are. B. C. Goodpasture did not make the churches of Christ what they were in the 1950s. He was a product of what they had become, perhaps the ablest product. And he led the people in the way that they had determined to go.

[Ed Harrell, "B.C. Goodpasture: Leader of Institutional Thought," in Melvin D. Curry, ed., They Being Dead Yet Speak (Florida College Lectures, 1981), pp. 249-250]. (Excerpt from a section entitled "The Emergence of Denominational Leadership").