No, 59, May 2003

 

WHAT THE QUARREL WAS ABOUT

 

      (This will appear as the Introduction to A Lover’s Quarrel. My Pilgrimage of Freedom in Churches of Christ, by Leroy Garrett, soon to be published by ACU Press, This portion, plus the two addenda already published in this newsletter, give you an idea what the book is about. You yet have 19 chapters to read, and there will be 22 pictures, To order see instructions under Between Us.)

 

         You may recognize that the title for this book is borrowed in part from the poet Robert Frost, who instructed that his epitaph read: He had a lover’s quarrel with the world. It occurred to me that the poet’s quarrel with his world and my quarrel with my church have similarities.

 

         The poem that best depicts my own pilgrimage is The Road Not Taken. Frost describes himself standing at the fork of a road. One road is well-traveled, well-worn, and is the way of ease and certainty. It is the road the crowd takes, the way of conformity. The other road is less-traveled, perhaps because it may be lonely, uncertain, and venturesome. He takes “the less-traveled way”   “because it was grassy and wanted wear.” Frost places all of us at the fork of the road, noting that it makes a big difference which road we take.

 

         Two roads diverged in a wood, and I 

         I took the one less-traveled by,

         And that has made all the difference.

 

         Frost saw his quarrel as a lover’s quarrel, as do I. If a quarrel is vindictive and divisive, it only compounds the problem one is seeking to solve, whether in the world or in the church. That must be the kind of disputation Paul had in mind when he urged, “The Lord’s servant must not quarrel” (2 Timothy 2:24 ). But there is lots of quarreling in the Bible, even God with His people. We may presume that it was usually done in love, certainly on God’s part.

 

         But love is not always evident. The urgent cry of a prophet or a reformer may appear to be madness more than an expression of love. Jesus was thought to have a demon and Paul was accused of being beside himself Did Luther’s quarrel with the Roman church appear to be a lover’s quarrel? Alexander Campbell admitted to being “tart and severe” in his exposure of clerical abuses, but could it not have been in love? Mother Teresa embarrassed politicians and dignitaries   including a sitting President   at a Washington, D.C. prayer breakfast when she scored our nation for its millions of abortions. Was her quarrel a Lover’s quarrel?

 

         Perhaps the best case I can make for my quarrel being a lover’s quarrel is that made by Raccoon John Smith back in the 1820s. When some Baptists were fed up with his efforts to reform them, they urged him to “go on and leave us alone and join the Campbellites.” His response was “I love you too much to leave you.” The argument is persuasive: One doesn’t leave because he loves too much to leave.

 

         Once you realize the extent of my quarrel, you may wonder why I didn’t just leave the Churches of Christ. As I have said for fifty years, and I say once more: I will never leave the Churches of’ Christ, never, no matter what, for I love my people too much to leave them. Even if they kick me out, I’ll stay around!

 

         There is more involved here than love. When a reformer stays with his people and works for change, he is saying that he believes in them and expects better things of them. His quarrel is a compliment.

 

         And what was the quarrel about? Freedom! I was urging my church to join me in a pilgrimage of freedom.

 

         Freedom from sectarianism, legalism, and obscurantism.

 

         Freedom to fully embrace the grace of God, and to be joyfully confident of our salvation.

 

         Freedom to exult in the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit   whose mission is to conform us to the likeness of Christ.

 

         Freedom to accept the Spirit’s gift of unity with forbearing love   in spite of all our differences and hangups.

 

         Freedom to accept as sisters and brother all those who are devoted to Jesus Christ as Lord, wherever they may be.

 

         Freedom to think for ourselves and to question the dogmas handed down by our forebears. including the dogma of anti-instrumental music.

 

         Freedom from the tyranny of opinionism   making opinions and methods tests of fellowship   and from a herd mentality and blind conformity, which hinder growth in Christ.

 

         Freedom to examine new ideas, to venture beyond party lines, and to march by a different drum-beat.

 

         Freedom even to be wrong in the quest for truth. Freedom to pick up the broken pieces and start over   whether a tragic divorce, drug addiction, a gay lifestyle, or a wavering faith   and to be loved and accepted during the struggle.

 

         Freedom to take a critical look at our history and admit where we’ve been wrong   and to get back on course.

 

         Freedom to bring women into the church as equals in ministry, and to bring an end to male domination.

 

         Freedom to make use of modern Biblical scholarship, and to be honest about the difficulties one faces in the interpretation of Scripture   without being called names or having one’s motives impugned.

 

         Freedom to participate in Body life in the assembly   with believers sharing their joys and sorrows, and encouraging each other in the faith   with professionals serving more as facilitators than as performers.

 

         Our Lord assures us that it is truth that makes us free, and truth may call for change. And change is often painful. I agree with Thomas Jefferson that no person, church, or nation can expect to move from despotism to liberty in a feather bed.

 

         And in stating what my pilgrimage of freedom has been about, Jefferson said it better than I can: I have sworn upon the altar of God. eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

 

         I am indebted to several people for this modest contribution to the reading public. Had it not been for my dear wife Ouida   who for years stayed after me to tell my story “before someone else does”   it would not have happened. And it was she, along with a few other persistent friends, who convinced me that perhaps mine is a story that should be told, for it is the story of a church as well as a person.

 

         I am especially indebted to the insightful guidance of Dr. Wayne Newland of Falmouth, Maine   a teacher, preacher, and school administrator now in retirement. Well acquainted with Churches of Christ, he was most helpful not only in what should be told but how it should be told.

 

         I also thank Dorothy Koone, a fellow member of the Singing Oaks Church of Christ in Denton, Texas and a writer of study materials for the ACU Press. An English teacher now in retirement, she offered both helpful suggestions and encouragement.

 

         I am grateful to Dr. Allen Dennis, professor of history and chair of the history faculty at Troy State University in Alabama, who not only critiqued the manuscript but also wrote the Preface. His own story   partly told in his prefatory remarks   is a testimonial to what this book is about. I take heart that his story   itself a pilgrimage of freedom in Churches of Christ   could be told a thousand times over.

 

 

 

THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL

 

         It is a fearful scene, one fraught with mystery and intrigue. The story is in Daniel 5. The occasion was during the Babylonian captivity in sixth century B.C. Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, is having a banquet for a thousand of his rulers from his vast empire. They are indulging in extravagant luxury. While they are reveling with both their wives and concubines, the king sends for the gold and silver vessels that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in Jerusalem that they might drink from them.

 

         Not content to simply carouse in a drunken stupor, the king in his blatant haughtiness chose to desecrate what was holy. In an arrogant display of raw power he mocked the God of heaven by desecrating what was deemed sacred. They not only drank from the sacred vessels, but praised their own gods of gold and silver as they did so. He chose the most dramatic way he knew to show his contempt for the God of the enslaved Hebrews. We may presume that this was consistent with his lifestyle. He wasn’t the kind that attended Sunday school!

 

         That is when it happened. It was spooky. The fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace.

 

         The king watched in terror as the hand wrote. Not only did his face flush, but his knees knocked and his joints gave way. He became a basket case. He feared that the handwriting on the wall was an indictment against his insolence, but he didn’t know in what measure.

 

         At this point the queen mother came into the banquet room. telling Belshazzar that Daniel, who had interpreted the dreams of his father Nebuchadnezzar, could solve his problem. Daniel was summoned and proceeded to reveal the message on the wall. It was not good. He rebuked Belshazzar for his pride and his idolatry   that he would dare to drink wine from sacred vessels while invoking his own gods of gold and silver. He had not humbled himself as his father had   who had learned that “it is the Most High God who rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomsoever he will.”

 

         Then Daniel read the handwriting on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel. Upharsin, which meant: “You have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.” Belshazzar’s kingdom was ending; it would be divided and given to the Medes and Persians. That very night the king was murdered. Darius the Mede took over his kingdom.

 

         It was to Belshazzar’s credit that God was able to get his attention. Like the devils, he believed and trembled. Many people never read God’s signboards. They couldn’t care less. They have no fear of God before their eyes. Even if they believed “the handwriting on the wall” was from God, they wouldn’t care what it said. This is what “sloth” in the seven deadly sins means   blatant indifference. It borders on being an unforgivable sin   in that so long as one is rigidly indifferent he cannot be reached. However bountiful grace may be, it has to be accepted.

 

         God often writes on the walls of our lives, and in different ways. It is always a judgment or a warning. It may be a judgment on the direction our lives have taken, or a warning to slow down or to take heed.

 

         The handwriting on the wall sometimes exposes the guilty man’s treachery   such as when an unexpected witness shows up in court to testify against him, or when a body washes ashore to provide damaging DNA evidence. The handwriting on the wall sometimes reads, Be sure your sin will find you out. It says to the one who supposes he can put one over on God, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7).

 

         To us nice folk the notes may be gentle reminders of the brevity of life. We live and make plans as if we are to be around for a long time. The handwriting might be a heart attack   or the “C” word from the doctor. It might be no more than a multiplication of wrinkles or tiring more quickly. The psalmist may have been disturbed by the transitory nature of life when he wrote, “So teach us to number our days. that we might gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).

 

         The handwriting might remind us that life often gives us but one chance. Lost opportunities haunt us all. A child’s lament to a too-busy father, “I wish you had time to come to my game,” might be words on the wall. The call for repentance   to change one’s life can go unheeded for so long that, like Esau, it at last eludes us even when we seek it diligently with tears (Heb.12: 17). Lest we take heed, the time comes when we can only tremble with fear.

 

         But there is grace in this story, even if unheeded. The handwriting on the wall was a call for king Belshazzar to repent, and to acknowledge that it is the God of heaven who rules over the kingdoms of men, as his father had. God seems always to offer one more chance. That is grace. But the time comes when it is too late.

 

         There is grace in the story for us. God’s warnings   the handwriting on the wall in our lives   are expressions of his grace. He keeps trying to get our attention   in all sorts of ways.

 

         The thoughtful but anonymous Texan who created a number of signboards   allegedly from God   may have been inspired by the story in Daniel when he had one of them read: Now which of the commandments is it that you don’t understand?   God. I also like the one that read, We need to have a talk.   God.   Leroy

 

 

 

Between Us . . .

 

         Ouida and I are staying close to home for most of the spring and summer. We made a most interesting trip to visit my brother Bill and his wife Betty who have retired to College Station/Bryan, Texas after a lifetime in Dallas. Their home is less than a mile from the Texas A&M University campus, a.k.a. “Aggieland.” A consummate Aggie since his college days. Bill  my only living sibling out of seven   is close at hand just in case the university needs him! They took us to see the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum, which is on the university campus. It is fabulous   easily worth a trip to Texas to see! A painting of “First Son” hangs in the foyer. an impressive likeness. We visited the A&M Church of Christ on Lord’s day, a huge church   with lots of Aggies as you might guess. Now that 1 have my autobiography finished, I have started on another book, which will be stories in the life of Alexander Campbell.

 

         This is our next to the last newsletter, number 59. With number 60 later in the summer we will call it quits. After forty years of Restoration Review   which ran 200 pages a year   and almost eleven years of the newsletter. I may be where the young man was who finally, after years of dating, finally popped the question to his girl friend. Once he proposed. and she quickly said yes. he sat silent as if in a daze. “Well, is that all you’re going to say, she asked? He then said. “I’m just thinking that maybe I’ ve said too much already!”

 

         But some of you write kindly letters, as if perhaps I haven’t said too much. I thank you for your graciousness. I’ve started a folder   labeled “Valedictory”   where I file your farewell letters of appreciation. I’ll have them on hand to read in my old age! I’m impressed how close the bond can grow between writer and reader   people who have never met   over years of sharing ideas. It becomes a heart-to-heart friendship as well as mind-to-mind experience. This is because we’ve shared life-changing truths.

 

         I’m both humbled and gratified that almost 400 of you have already ordered my upcoming autobiography   A Lover’s Quarrel: My Pilgrimage of Freedom in Churches of Christ   which I see as the story of a church as well as a person. Those who have ordered the book will receive it soon after it is off the press, with invoice enclosed, at 20% off retail price, which itself will be modest.

 

         Those who yet wish to order the book will receive the 20% discount. until the book is published. Order in one of three ways: by e-mail to our address on front of this newsletter; or write to us regular mail; or call us at 940-891-0494. Please include the address to which the book is to be mailed. It will be several months yet before publication.

 

 

 

         A new book, The Jesus Proposal, by John York and Rubel Shelly, is one more sign of how Churches of Christ are changing   mostly for the better. This book, after the tradition of Isaac Errett. calls for unity on the basis of Christlikeness, or what Campbell called “the catholic rule of union.” In this book we are at last addressing the church at large. $21 postpaid.

 

         The Stone Campbell Movement: The Story of the American Restoration Movement by Leroy Garrett is out in a new edition and a new price of $35 postpaid, but for a 573-page book the price is in line.

 

         A shorter history that we highly recommend, dealing primarily with Churches of Christ history. is Renewing God’s People: A Concise History of Churches of Christ, by Gary Holloway and Douglas A. Foster. $16 postpaid.

 

         Carl Ketcherside’s The Twisted Scriptures - a hard hitting book on biblical interpretation   is available at $9 postpaid.

 

         In Radical Answers from the Minor Prophets Gary Hollaway shows how the ancient Hebrew prophets speak to our age   whether crime, poverty, injustice, or simply the point of life. Only 10.95 postpaid.

 

         We have turned up enough back issues of Restoration Review that we can offer ten different issues over many years for $5 postpaid.

 

         In So Also In Christ Neal Punt questions the ancient dogma that everyone is lost except those the Bible declares to be saved. He believes it is the other way around: everyone is saved except those the Bible declares to be lost. He presents a compelling case: the Bible makes it clear who the lost are (those who persistently reject such light as they have); everyone else is saved or the elect. He seeks a compromise between dogmatic determinism and a presumptuous universalism. $8 postpaid.

 

         (These titles are available from us. Send check or money order. Thank you.)

 

  

Life’s Greatest Adventure

 

         A recent article in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin compares scientific and religious “Desire for Eternal Life,” It notes that one scientific view is to overcome the aging of the body through hormone therapy and healthy gene selection and thus greatly extend human life. It is even suggested that immortality   meaning in this case endless life on earth   might be realized by “repairing the entire human genome.” This kind of thinking implies that it is physical existence itself that is the point of life   the longer one lives the better. Aging and death are the enemy. Life’s greatest adventure is to be “young” on earth forever, or at least a very long time, Science might do it, they opine,

 

         The Christian view is that God has ordained that life on earth be brief   give or take a few decades   and that aging and death are not enemies but blessings, Ceaseless life on this earth as we now know it would become a nightmare. Life’s greatest adventure is to grow old and die! Death is the door to the main event, that which gives meaning to life on earth. He who desires endless existence on earth doesn’t know what life is about. It would be like a caterpillar desiring always to remain a caterpillar   rather than turning into a butterfly.