“THE MEN OF PURPOSE CONFERENCE”

Hugo McCord

A physician’s catscan reveals that Lois McCord (86 years old, my wife since 1932) is failing mentally (tiny multiple strokes). But I rejoice that spiritually she is still sharp. Today she read a “Church of Christ” bulletin promoting “The Men of Purpose Conference” at “the Exchange Center in Expo Square,” a conference “open to Christian men of any denomination.” She expressed shock when she handed the bulletin to me.

“Christian men” in “any denomination” are in something that is sinful: “Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:13). The fact that there are many men in many denominations who believe in Christ does not mean that they are Christians as the Bible describes Christians.

Moreover, admission to “The Men of Purpose Conference,” says the bulletin, is “free to men and boys of all ages.” Why omit women and girls? In “Christ Jesus” there “is neither male nor female” (Galatians 3:28).

Very likely “The Men of Purpose Conference” is a copy of “Promise Keepers,” a national, inter-denominational men’s movement founded by Bill McCartney, former head football coach at the University of Colorado. McCartney wanted to do something to make men better husbands and fathers, an admirable motive.

The “Promise Keepers” have 13 annual meetings filling huge stadiums from coast to coast, with admission fees now in the millions of dollars. But, along with inspiring men to be

faithful to their wives and to be loving fathers to their children, his organization teaches salvtion by faith only, the impossibility of falling from grace, a millennial reign of Christ on earth, and that the church is a non-essential. Promise # 6 of McCartney’s organization is: “A Promise Keeper is committed to reaching beyond racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.”

Certainly Bill McCartney and all of his Promise Keepers are committed to God and to Christ, but Jesus teaches more is required to go to heaven than being good husbands and fathers. The apostle Paul taught that the only way to go to heaven is to be a member of the one church which he “purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28), and that the only way to become a member of that one church, his “body” (Colossians 1:18), is to be “baptized into” that “one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13).

The apostle Paul, not Bill McCartney, taught that baptism is more than a burial in “water,” as beautiful and meaningful as that is, picturing Jesus’ body being buried (Matthew 27:60; Acts 10:47; Colossians 2:12). The burial is only half of baptism. The second part, leading from tears to joy, is a resurrection from the water to a “newness of life” as “Christ was raised up from the dead” (Mark 16:9; Romans 6:4).

A husband and father, no matter how good and loving he is to his wife and children, is a sinner (Romans 3:23), and “lost” (Luke 19:10), and outside of Christ, until he is “baptized into Christ” (Galatians 3:27).

A sinner’s baptism saves him (1 Peter3:21), but the water does not do the saving. Water itself cannot change a lost sinner into a forgiven Christian, but in Jesus’ plan the “washing” in the “fountain” of “the blood of the Lamb,” for “sin and for uncleanness” (Zechariah 13:1; Revelation 7:14), does not take place until the body of a sinner is “washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22). It is “the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26), yes, “the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5). If “The Men of Purpose Conference” leads men to Jesus, “the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:9), “at the Exchange Center in Expo Square,” the time will be well spent.

I am glad that Lois was shocked when she read about “The Men of Purpose Conference” open “to Christian men of any denomination.” She still has her Bible knowledge.