Things That Matter Most . . .

Restoration Review · 1967
(Volumes 9)

PREFACE

A young politician once approached Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, a veteran in politics, asking him for any advice he might have for one who desired to be a statesman. Mr. Baldwin passed along three rules that it would be well for the young man to follow: First, if you are a subscriber to a press-cutting agency, cancel your subscription at once. Second, never laugh at your opponents’ mistakes. Third, steel yourself to the attribution of false motives.

This impresses us as good advice for an editor as well as a statesman. The first rule, we suppose, refers to the politician’s concern for public opinion, and to his efforts to find out what people are thinking, so that he may always preserve his public image.

An editor, especially the editor of a religious publication, must of course be a student of what people are thinking, but he must always be critical of that thinking. He must be aware when people are not thinking or when they refuse to think. Above all, he must not allow their opinion of him to distort his vision. He must not ask himself What will they think of me if I publish this?, but rather Is it true? and If it is true, is it important? As a leader in religious thought he is justified in publishing an opinion even if it may be true.

Responsible journalists must accept Baldwin’s second rule as appropriate for them also, for no purpose is served by ridicule or innuendo. As Christians we might laugh with each other, but never at each other.

The third rule is also appropriate for editors, especially editors of religious journals that dare to challenge the status quo. It must be true that some editors, like some politicians, have ulterior motives; but surely it is not true of us all. We may not go so far as Immanuel Kant and insist that a pure motive is the only intrinsic good, but we will agree that it is a high virtue, and that it is most praiseworthy in editors as well as politicians.

But the charge of a false motive remains unanswerable. There is no way for one to prove that he is honorably motivated, especially to those who believe that if a man starts a publication he is up to something. Either he is out for money, a rather illogical charge in view of the cost of publication, or he is out for self-aggrandizement, or something. This is especially true of the editor that may change his mind about some things through the years. This is made to mean that since one scheme failed to bring the desired fame and riches, then another is tried. It is virtuous for an editor to say the same old thing the same old way all through the years. This is soundness, and of course his motives are always Simon pure.

So the editor that dares to think and to grow and to change, and to encourage his readers to do so, will do well to listen to Prime Minister Baldwin: Steel yourself to the attribution of false motives.

This is the fifteenth volume that we have presented to the public, though only the second to be issued in book form. We like to think of ourselves as entering each year into what Oliver Wendell Holmes called the “free trade in ideas.” As Justice Holmes put it: “The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas . . . the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”

A free trade in ideas is all that we have the right to ask. This journal has no sectarian support, nor does it want such. It is not sustained by any denominational loyalties. It lives only because of its power of survival in the competition of the market. When it stops saying things of relative importance, or when it has served its purpose on the market, it will die, and it should die and receive an honorable burial. Journals that are preserved decade after decade, not because of their competitive strength in the market of ideas, but because of their institutional ties and party loyalties, will not have to suffer death pangs, for they were never really alive to begin with. They are not read so much for their ideas as for the sake of the party line, and it is the party that sustains them.