How a movement for unity became a story of division. 

A revealing account of how a shared faith and commitment to Scripture produced a fractured fellowship.

Truth and Consequences tells the story of Churches of Christ in the mid–twentieth century—a period marked by growth and widening division. From 1939 to 1989, the movement experienced three major separations and numerous smaller fractures, revealing what became a defining pattern: a habit of division.

These divisions did not arise from a loss of faith in Scripture. Quite the opposite. They emerged among people deeply committed to the Bible, who believed it provided a clear and binding pattern for the church. The problem was not whether Scripture had authority, but how that authority should be understood and applied.

As the book traces key controversies—from the institutional battles of the 1950s and 60s to the hermeneutical crises of the 1980s—it shows how shared assumptions about biblical authority often led to conflicting conclusions and, ultimately, to separation.

In its final chapter, the book names the deeper issue: a powerful but rigid way of reading Scripture, rooted in “positive law,” that turned doctrinal disagreement into a test of faithfulness and made division seem necessary. By 1989, the result was unmistakable. A movement devoted to unity had become deeply fragmented—and many had come to question the very interpretive approach that had led it there.

Truth and Consequences is both a compelling historical narrative and a searching theological account of how Christian conviction, theological clarity, and division became so tightly intertwined.

C. Leonard Allen serves as dean of the College of Bible and Ministry at Lipscomb University in Nashville. He taught theology, ethics, and philosophy for many years at Abilene Christian University, Biola University, Fuller Theological Seminary, and John Brown University. He has spoken widely on college campuses and in churches over the past thirty-five years on biblical, historical, and theological themes. He is the author of numerous books, including The Cruciform Church, Distant Voices, Things Unseen, Poured Out, The Bookroom: Remembrance and Forgiveness—A Memoir, and most recently, Faithful Defiance.

ISBN: 9781684260799

Pages: 

Dimensions (inches): 6 x 9

Weight (pounds): .5