The Church of Christ: Yesterday and Today . . .

Restoration Review · 1973-74
(Volumes 15, 16)

PREFACE

Issuing a journal is something like creating a piece of sculpture. Once the writer sees the idea he wants to develop, stashed away as it usually is amidst the vagaries and uncertainties of a cluttered mind, he must chip his way not only to clarity but also to something important. Nothing is so inexcusable as a journal that says nothing. Like a piece of sculpture, it must say something significant to those who peer into it or upon it. And, like sculpture, it must be a piece of art, a thing of beauty in its own way. Entertaining an idea is akin to entertaining a person in that both are works of art. And the journalist has both tasks in hand: to entertain a person with all idea. While I have never taken scalpel in hand, I should think the sculptor would identify his own mission in some such terms.

It must have been so with Michelangelo. While lesser artists faltered in the presence of what they called “the Giant,” that huge hunk of white marble that had lain idle in a cathedral work yard for 35 years waiting its moment of truth, Michelangelo accepted the challenge because he could “see” in the l8-feet high mass of stone a great truth, eager to be released from its entombment. The stone had been a tantalizing enigma, for no sculptor had been able to come up with an acceptable use for it. Michelangelo pondered the stone for twelve years, for he was resolved that in its elegant raw material one could move far beyond the mere “imitation of nature,” which had hampered so much art, to the noblest realms of the spirit.

Sequestering himself and the stone in a high wooden structure, the sculptor devoted his talents to wresting from the prized marble the forms of virtue that brooded in his mind. For upwards of three years his skilled hands tapped away the marble, until finally there stood before him, 17 feet tall, the mighty David, the son of Jesse. Other Davids had been done by various artists, but none compared with the elegance of this one. The head was like Apollo and the body was like Hercules. It had the aura of courage, defiance, and righteous indignation. David was young, handsome, and strong; and it personified the spirit of freedom and independence that had long characterized the city of Florence. It is noteworthy that, while Michelangelo studied that block of marble, Savonarola was burned at the stake in the heart of Florence because of his reformatory efforts. David still stands guard in that ancient city, a symbol of that spirit that gave the world both the Renaissance and the Reformation.

Publishing a journal is something like that, or should be. The task is to free ideas from their institutional encrustations, which can be as stubborn as the hardest granite. An editor must always be chipping away, even when his hands are not as skilled as those of Michelangelo. He cannot easily isolate himself, nor should he want to. His handiwork must be wrought in the thick of the fight. Because of deadlines, which is what journalism is all about, he cannot take all the time he wants. This is why he often fouls up the material. Perhaps all art has this hazard. Even Michelangelo, when he touched the chisel too severely, would have to start over.

When Giorgio Vasari, himself an artist, wrote his biographies of painters and sculptors, he paused to say something special about Michelangelo. Artists were faltering under futile efforts simply to imitate nature, he observes, and so God took pity on their fruitless labor. “He resolved to send to earth a spirit capable of supreme expression in all the arts, one able to give form to painting, perfection to sculpture, and grandeur to architecture,” he says of Michelangelo, “and the Almighty Creator graciously endowed this chosen one with an understanding of philosophy and with the grace of poetry.”

It is not difficult to believe that God in His gracious providence gave the world the likes of Michelangelo. Let us believe that He also gives us journalists, editors. and writers. Those of us who are heirs of the Restoration Movement have been especially blessed in this regard. Our publications have not always been exemplary, but even the Renaissance had its renegades. All in all, our Movement has added significantly to the depository of responsible Christian journalism. We have taken part in the Great Conversation. We have often marred the canvas and shattered the marble, bringing our plea to “unite the Christians in all the sects” upon hard times. But all along the way there has been reasonable and responsible journalism that has been a great blessing to many.

There are reasons for believing that Michelangelo, troubled as much in soul as he was, was seeking God in his artistic efforts. Like the Creator Himself. he made David “a man after God’s own heart”! Must this not always be the driving motive of the Christian writer’:’ The editor who truly writes fur God deserves to be read by those who love God.

It is with this spirit that we present to our readers this double volume of our periodical, two years in one volume, which are our 21st and 22nd volumes presented to the reading public, being the 15th and 16th years of Restoration Review. Its theme is our effort to chisel our way to a better understanding of the nature of the church as God intended it. If we can believe that that church, the Body of Christ itself, is somehow out there among “the churches,” embedded in the morass of sectarian religion, then we are always to be at our posts, with mallet and chisel in hand. and be there still when the death angel calls — with our mallet over our shoulder ready for the next stroke. our task still unfinished.