No. 24, June 1997

 

GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH YOUR GUARDIAN ANGEL

 

            The early Christians, as well as the Jews, believed not only in angels generally but that each of God’s children has a guardian angel. It is evident from Mt. 18:10 that Jesus also believed this: “their angels in heaven always see the face of My father who is in heaven.” One’s guardian angel not only watches after him, but in certain circumstances represents him as a kind of alter ego, even resembling him in appearance and voice. This means the angel would take bodily form when necessary.

 

            This is evident in Acts 12:15 where the apostle Peter’s friends can’t believe the report that Peter is at the gate knocking. “It is his angel,” they told the maid who had recognized Peter’s voice through the closed door. And, yes, of course, the angel would sound like Peter, and, if the maid had seen him, even look like him.

 

            Such angels, guardian and otherwise, could appear from heaven in a flash. Jesus believed that he only needed to say the word and an angelic army would be at his disposal (Mt. 26:53), and it may be that one angel in particular (Gabriel?) was his guardian (Lk. 22:43). It is interesting that the Moslems believe that it was Gabriel who appeared to Mohammed and revealed to him the Koran.

 

            While it may be that we in Churches of Christ have failed to teach this part of the catholic faith as we should, it has received some attention in our heritage, at least from Alexander Campbell. He believed that every true Christian has a guardian angel that never sleeps, and because of this “the fiery darts of Satan and the wiles of the roaring lion are employed against him in vain.”

 

            Campbell even surmised that we will at last sit down with our guardian angel in heaven and recount “the ten thousand deliverances” he effected for us while on planet earth. He pictures us with grateful emotion putting our arms around our angel and thanking him for his ministrations of grace.

 

            Then in a burst of divine eloquence Campbell goes on to describe how it might be with us and our angel when we meet in heaven:

           

            “While in the midst of such social rapture he throws his immortal arms around his benefactor, he lifts his bright and beaming eye of grateful piety to Him who gave him such a friend and deliverer in time of peril and of need; and who, through such a scene of trials and of conflicts, brought him safely to the peaceful city of eternal rest!” (Mill. Harb., 1841, p., 479)

           

            That is a wow! Campbell writing about our embracing and thanking our guardian angel in heaven! (He also believed that demons are the spirits of evil human being!) And you have heard that he was a hard-nosed rationalist - “a child of the Enlightenment” some call him. Perhaps so, but he was closer to heaven than to the Enlightenment.

           

            One more point. The church has never believed that angels dwell within us. They minister only without and in our world. It is the Holy Spirit that ministers to us from within. What resources of power we have, the Spirit within and angels without! Should not such promises influence the way we live on planet earth?

 

            As Campbell wrote about such things he cautioned his readers that it is difficult for people who live in such a materialistic world as ours to believe in the realities of what he called “the spiritual universe.” We must take heed that the world does not rob us of the resplendent powers available to us, both within and without.

           

            One day you’ll know your guardian angel by name. It will be get acquainted time! – Leroy

 

DO WE REALLY LOVE WHEN WE DON’T LIKE?

 

        Love wills our neighbor’s good whether we like him or not. - Joseph Fletcher (1972)

 

            In my class on Ethics at Richland College in Dallas this summer I included a unit on Situation Ethics, a moral theory set forth by Joseph Fletcher. His thesis is that there is but one intrinsic (unconditional) good and that is love, and that always the moral thing to do in any situation is the loving thing. It is the situation that determines what this will be, hence situation ethics.

 

            This means that love might overrule an accepted norm, such as to always tell the truth. One might discard the rule and lie, if the situation demanded it, for love’s sake. He insists that this is what Jesus was doing when he summed up all the law (norms) in terms of but one thing, love (for God and others).

 

            Fletcher has other provocative theses, such as love and justice being the same, for justice is love distributed. But it is this one, quoted above, on the distinction between loving and liking that especially challenges me. While I went along with it in my class, I am having second thoughts.

 

            Yes, we in the church have always said something like that: we can love without liking. We are to love everyone, but there might be many, even our sisters and brothers in Christ, that we don’t like, we say, comforting ourselves. It gets us home free: I have to love him but I don’t have to like him!

 

            I am not so sure. I doubt if the meaning of agape love will allow such a distinction between loving and liking. Do you suppose there were those that Jesus disliked? I doubt it. Herod may have been “that fox” and some Pharisees hypocrites, but that doesn’t mean he disliked them. We can both love and like without approving.

 

            I think of Jesus liking everyone, such as those at the wedding party in Cana and the Pharisees gathered in Matthew’s home. He liked Pilate. He liked Nicodemus. He liked all the , apostles, including Judas. Everybody!

 

            I want to be that way. As I search my heart even as I sit before this computer I cannot bring to mind anyone that I dislike. That includes those that have been less than charitable to me. I know of no one that I could not enjoy visiting with. Certainly there is no one that I hate, but neither is there anyone that I dislike.

 

            Obviously we will like some more than others just as we love some more than others. But why can’t we love/like everyone? Come now, you say, like a Nero, like a Hitler, and (these days) like a Timothy McVeigh? If we love them (Do we really?) we can like them. Without approving of their behavior obviously. If we can love the unlovely why can’t we like the unlikeable?

 

            Dinner with a Nero or a Hitler would be a ball! What a conversation! I would love it - I mean like it - and like them. Why not? And poor McVeigh, what a tragedy! But I liked him from the start.

 

            I am thinking that a love that cannot like may be less than love.

 

            So, when I return to my class next week I am going to tell them that I have changed my mind. Yes, if love is the only unconditional good, why can’t it include liking? Agape love may well imply liking.

 

            So I would amend Fletcher’s thesis to read: Love wills the neighbor’s good, whether we approve of him or not. While we may disapprove of his way of life, we will both love and like him.

 

            Isn’t that more Christian? To like and to love is the ideal. To dislike any person created in the image of God falls short of the example of Christ. – Leroy

 

ASK!

 

        Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. – Matt. 7:7

 

            I had business to attend to in a nearby town. The girl on the phone gave me detailed instructions on how to get there. When I drove right to it without a hitch, I kidded with the girl, “Anybody that can give directions that well should have no problem telling someone how to go to heaven.” She told me she could do that too!

 

            Once we had attended to the business, which went quickly, I said, “This business of going to heaven, it is a matter of the grace of God, right?” She replied, “Yes, but you have to ask!”

 

            I could see that her boss was getting a little edgy about the direction of our conversation, so I commended her for her wisdom and went on my way. Had we said a word about the Texas Rangers or Tiger Woods or even the stock market, it would have been appropriate, but the slightest reference to religion these days makes folk in public places uneasy. Are we pagan?

 

            You have to ask! I thought about it all the way home and then told Ouida about it. Her response: “I smell an article brewing!”

 

            I was reminded that what the girl said is what Jesus said, Ask! Even more, he promised that if we ask we will receive. Ask, receive; seek, find, knock, it will be opened. It is that simple and that profound! When you stop to think about it, it is amazing that Jesus ever said such a thing. But the apostles went on to put it another way: “You receive not because you ask not” (Jas. 4:2).

 

            Isn’t this the story of salvation all through the Bible, from Mt. Sinai to pentecost? The winners asked, the losers didn’t. Moses asked, Pharaoh didn’t. Elijah asked, Ahab didn’t. The pentecostians who asked became the church, the others didn’t.

 

            It is too simple to be either Calvinistic or Arminian. Or is it both? The Calvinist could say, “Those that ask are the elect,” while the Arminian could argue, “The elect are those that ask.” We can all agree that asking, seeking, knocking are fundamental to religious faith.

 

            There are of course different ways of asking. It is first of all a matter of the heart, “a humble and contrite heart,” as in Ps. 51: 17. Or as our Lord puts it in a beatitude: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” We are asking when we pray, when we read, when we study, when we share ideas.

 

            Asking is actually a rule of life. I recently heard a specialist in fundraising say, “Money doesn’t just come in; you have to ask for it.” Many a man has missed the girl he might have married because he never asked. Many a question has gone unanswered and many a problem unsolved for lack of asking. Many a “Why didn’t you’s” have to be answered with “You never asked.” I’ve learned as a teacher in the classroom that it takes considerable effort and skill to get students to ask.

 

            We may not ask because we don’t want to appear ignorant, or we are fearful of rejection. Or worse still, we feel no need to know or to change. Pride! It robs us of the most glorious blessings. Maybe heaven itself. Asking calls for humility. We are saying we have lost our way and need help. When the prodigal returned home it was a pilgrimage of asking. Isn’t that what life is about?

 

            Finally, there is a different kind of asking, questions that teach, quicken, and admonish. But a certain moral authority is required for such asking. Much of Jesus’ teaching was this kind of asking: Where are the nine?, Can you be baptized with my baptism?, What does it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?, Who can by worrying add one cubit to his life?

 

            Socrates had that kind of moral authority, and perhaps every good teacher does. Such ones have to be worthy to ask the hard questions, questions that liberate. And the worthy are .called upon to sacrifice, sometimes with their lives. For asking liberating questions Socrates was poisoned and Jesus was crucified.

 

            It is the tough questioners that make askers of us. Blessed are those who make inquirers of us! It was the moral presence of Christ that caused one to ask, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” It was when Peter preached the power of the risen Christ that the crowd on pentecost asked, “What shall we do?”

 

            Back to the conversation with the office girl. I spoke of grace and she spoke of asking. Yes, grace, but you have to ask! She was saying, like Alexander Campbell said, that grace is unconditional in its availability, but conditional for its enjoyment. Like a deep well of life-giving water. It is there and that’s grace, but with bucket in hand we have to ask.

 

            So grace and asking are compatible? Grace and (human) works are incompatible, but not grace and faith, not grace and repentance, not grace and prayer, not grace and obedience, not grace and baptism. We have to ask!

 

            And does it not apply to the whole of our Christian walk? We never cease asking, seeking, knocking. Isn’t that what grace is? – Leroy

 

OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

            I have at last yielded to the call of cyberspace and am online. Our e-mail address is lgarrett@iglobal.net. It is indeed a new world for us. When we needed to contact friends in Australia in reference to their upcoming visit with us, we only needed to type the message into the computer and send it on its way to Down Under in only a few seconds. I am also on the RM-Bible list out of Abilene, Tx., which is a share group of several hundreds. I have already posted a number of short essays for discussion, and they were discussed. I was warmly received, so much so that I am threatening to do a piece on “The Kingdom of God Is Like the Internet,” which accepts good and bad. But the RM-Bible is a bit overwhelming. When I had to be away for a few days I had 580 messages awaiting me! These are not all personal, you understand, for most of them are conversations between those on the list. All of us receive everything that is posted. As interesting as it is, there is no way to read it all. We welcome your e-mail at address above. I might add that Ouida is less than enthusiastic about all this, and she is not involved, supposing, with good reason, that we had enough to do already. But it is still like the kingdom, even without Ouida! She does respond to my call when there is something special to read, which is sometimes about her!

 

            This summer I am teaching a course in Ethics at Richland College in Dallas, where I taught back in the 70s. Dallas has become much more pluralistic since then, so that I now have a substantial percentage of Asians in my class, including Buddhists from Vietnam and Hong Kong. Most are in process of being naturalized, so I tell them that they need to be informed about our Judeo-Christian moral tradition, which is what I teach them, but we draw on Eastern moral concepts as well - including Confucius’ golden rule. You may not be aware that the founder of the leading Chinese religion taught the golden rule long centuries before Jesus did. What is significant is that Jesus also taught it. But he taught an even higher ethic in the same Sermon on the Mount when he taught that we are not only to treat others the way we want them to treat us, but we are to treat others the way God treats us! There is no higher moral standard than that. I teach them all that. If atheists and humanists can teach their ethics to these college students, why can’t Christians teach theirs? But never dogmatically. We draw upon the moral philosophy of all the great religions. I suggest to them that all truth is from God wherever it is found. Buddhism, for example, emerged out of passionate concern for suffering humanity.

 

            Our recent travel has been nothing less than exciting. We flew to Nashville in May for my first board meeting with the Disciples of Christ Historical Society. Interesting! Our president, Peter Morgan, whom I taught philosophy at Bethany, assured us that doing history is also worship. We then rented a car and drove all the way to Charleston, S.C., which is 530 miles, taking in a large hunk of the South on our way. In Charleston we dined on sea food, visited pre-Civil War churches, the historic district, Ft. Sumter (where the Civil War started), the Citadel, and Magnolia Gardens. At Patriot’s Island we boarded the Yorktown, an aircraft carrier of World War II fame. We were in no hurry, so we walked for hours, now and again, about the historic district, enjoying the old homes. Ouida had the sensation of stepping back into a different era, but it was still home. I especially enjoyed talking to the cadets at the Citadel, but we didn’t talk about women, a few of whom (very few!) were around!

 

            We returned to Nashville (to fly home) by way of McMinnville where we visited the Sunset Hills Church (mostly Church of Christ but free) . I addressed the combined adult classes on the nature of the church and the assembly on the essence of religion. They were prepared by study and persecution to appreciate my ecumenical approach to both subjects. The McMinnville area has more Churches of Christ than most anywhere else. Ouida and I were amazed to see so many in whatever direction we drove. They are at the same time the most conservative and reactionary to change. The Sunset Hills folk, who had had enough, chose to peacefully start over and be free, really free, in Christ. They were warned not to call themselves a Church of Christ (“We’ll fight you on the radio if you do,” which is what they do on the radio, fight each other). How beautiful it is to see believers who elect, lovingly, to embark on a pilgrimage of freedom! It is always a pilgrimage of joy. We were guests of James and Sammye Dillon. James was a longtime elder and preacher in Churches of Christ. They had a dinner party for us, and what a beautiful fellowship it was!

 

            We couldn’t be that near Murfreesboro without dropping by to see longtime friend Norman Parks, who is getting married this month at 93. His first wife, Ella Rae, was a dear friend and often my hostess when I was doing research at the Disciples of Christ Historical Society. I conned Norman into having his fiancé on hand for our visit, so we got to meet the lovely Vivian Anderson, who is a young 75-year old widow. After a glorious visit and dinner together, prepared by Debbie, who will be their live-in cook/maid, we went on our way, convinced that the days of miracles are not over! But Ouida still says when so ‘many of our single-again male friends so easily get married again, and so in love, These men!

 

            Later in May I made a quick trip to New Orleans without Ouida to take part in a one-day study seminar at the Causeway Blvd Church of Christ in Mandeville, La. Ken Istre and Ed Hendrix were the other teachers. I gave two discourses on “Walking by Faith” (the theme) in the Old Testament. Cliff and Jeanene Istre were my hosts. Their dinner party on the night before was a foretaste of heaven!

 

            Since Ouida was preparing for two dinner parties herself, I also went alone to the Burbank Gardens Church of Christ in Grand Prairie (Dallas) on a recent Sunday where I spoke, at their request, on Christian Unity. I emphasized that unity is “a gift given” (by the Spirit) to be received by the church, not ours to create. Included in our dinner party afterwards was my dear niece, Judith Powell, daughter of my beloved departed sister JoAnn.

 

            Those in the Indianapolis area are urged to join us at the Speedway Church of Christ for a one-day lectureship on “The Stone-Campbell Movement: Two Centuries of Diversity” on August 9. Other speakers will be James North (Cincinnati Bible Seminary), David Langford (Quaker Ave. Church of Christ, Lubbock) and Carson Reed (Westlake Church of Christ, Indianapolis). Sessions all day and dinner together. Call Kent Ellett at 317-243-8040 for more info.

 

BOOK NOTES

 

            The Works of Carl Ketcherside in 12 beautiful, hardbound volumes is now available. The retail price is $200.00 plus postage, but until further notice you can purchase it from us at $175.00, including postage. I have written an extensive introduction to the set, which you will find interesting. I am pleased that this substantial task has been completed with such excellence. I am sure Carl is pleased!

 

            The Stone-Campbell Movement by Leroy Garrett is presently out of print, but it is due to be republished by College Press, perhaps in the next few weeks. You may place your order with us and we sill send you a copy with invoice enclosed when it is available.

 

            Leon Gibson’s Christian, You Were Baptized in Water and Spirit takes the position that one receives baptism of the Spirit when he is water baptized, and that receiving the Spirit and being baptized with the Spirit are the same. It is a resourceful and responsible piece of work. $8 postpaid.

 

            Those who read Our Heritage in Unity and Fellowship, edited by Cecil Hook and made up of select articles by Ketcherside/Garrett, say that it has an amazing amount of information for just one book. I’ve sold all we had, but Cecil is sending more, and we’ll send you a copy at $8 postpaid.

 

            The God Who Puts Us Back Together by Gene Shelburne is a book that addresses brokenness in all its tragic forms. A touching book that reaches out to troubled lives. An ideal gift for those who are discouraged and hurting. It teaches from the heart. $12 postpaid.

 

            K. C. Moser’s The Gift of Romans and The Way of Salvation are still available, books that have gone far in alerting us to the role of grace in salvation. $9 each postpaid.

 

            We still have five bound volumes of Restoration Review, covering ten years, 1983-92. We are confident you will find many articles of lasting interest. $75 for all five volumes, or you could start with one volume at $15 and then purchase the others as you will, $75 total. It isn’t the money as much as a desire to put the remaining volumes, less than 100 now, in circulation.