EDITOR JOINS FACULTY OF BETHANY COLLEGE

I have accepted the responsibility of the Department of Philosophy at Bethany College in Bethany, West Virginia. I will move my family to the mountain state in September at which time I will enter upon what I believe will be the greatest experience of my life. To teach philosophy is a thrill in anybody’s college; but to teach philosophy in the hills that gave birth to the Restoration Movement is something special. Alexander Campbell will be my neighbor; his library will be in the same building where I will have my office. If that will not inspire a man to move toward excellence, then I suppose he cannot be inspired.

I rejoice to have as my daily companions such great minds as Plato, Descartes, and Kant; but at Bethany I can also walk with Pendleton, Garfield, and McGarvey. Think how it would make you feel to pause along the hillside on your way to class and see Alexander and Thomas Campbell with Walter Scott pass by on horseback on their way to New Lisbon, Ohio where Scott is to be named the Restoration Movement’s first evangelist! Can you not hear them as they exchange ideas on the plan of salvation?

If we are to sanctify the present we must hallow the past. As America struggles for the meaning of her own existence we see her turning to her own past for part of the answer. If the great Disciple brotherhood is to find itself it must have fellowship with its own past. This is the main reason why I decided to go to Bethany College. I want to live next door to Alexander Campbell for awhile. It will do my lazy bones good to see him go to his study each morning well before dawn, and to notice how sometimes the yard bell beckons him to breakfast after an all-night vigil in his study. I need to get the feel of how sorrow, tragedy, and disappointment somehow blend with discipline, industry, and dedication in producing a mind like Alexander Campbell. I think our present, mixed-up world and our neurotic, mercurial brotherhood will be more understandable by means of an extended rendezvous with yesteryears.

So I trust you will permit Restoration Review to be a kind of liaison with our great and glorious past as we pitch our tent alongside Buffalo Creek. Surely you will want to hear a man who comes to you from Alexander Campbell! Other than a dramatic change in what the Germans would call sitz im leben this journal will continue to be what it has been—an independent journal that is in orbit, tied to no party and obligated to no persuasion. It will be published from Alton, Illinois as it has been. It will be no more affiliated with Bethany College than it has been with MacMurray College. It is joining no party of the brotherhood that it loves and serves, but it will continue to be an independent voice for disciples-at-large.

I feel that something great, good and wonderful is going to happen to our brotherhood in the next few decades. Professionally speaking, I think by being at Bethany College I can involve myself in all that is in the offing better than where I have taught for the past several years. I will be able to see better. The perch is higher. I told you in a previous editorial that during a visit to Bethany I got a lump in my throat. Well, I suppose that makes a long story short. In view of what I want to do for the cause of Restoration I need a lump in my throat.

DAVID BENJAMIN GARRETT

A little boy named “Benjy” has come to live with us. He is hardly one year old. Though we have had him but a few weeks, he has already climbed into our hearts. He has a little motor that he turns on when he is happy, so he spends much of his time playing with toys and purring up a storm. Sometimes I hear him awake late in the night, lying in his crib and running his motor. He is a handsome lad with blonde hair, blue eyes, buoyant face, and a bay window. He seems to love life, especially when he goes strolling in the park.

We have adopted each other. He shall be to me a son, and I shall be to him a father. Heaven has taught us that there can be no relationship higher or holier than that of adoption. It is a sacred trust that adds a new dimension to life. Benjy joins Phoebe as our second adopted child. They come from very different backgrounds. It is going to be interesting to see them grow up together-Phoebe with her wild, adventurous spirit; and Benjy with his meek acquiescence. They are doing well in adjusting themselves to each other. They well illustrate how God’s children can be so different and yet live happily together under the protective and adoptive care of the heavenly Father.

Benjy had some difficulty for the first day or so he was with us. He had been tossed about here and there in welfare homes until he had no feeling of real security. When we drove away from the welfare home with him we had one frantic baby on our hands. He cried himself to exhaustion and would then look at us in quiet desperation. It gives one a helpless feeling. We knew it was for his good, but we also knew there was anxiety within him. As the miles slowly clicked off we found that he did better if we did not try to hold him or give him any attention, so we sat him beside us, gave him a toy and left him alone as much as we could. For many miles he stared at us through tear-dimmed eyes and with grave suspicion.

But once we got him to Phoebe he was a different lad. She took over, assuring him that “everything is going to be all right,” and assuming her role as a little mother with considerable maturity for a five-year old girl. In a matter of minutes he had that little motor going and showed every sign of being a permanent member of the family.

During this ordeal of Benjy’s adjustment I thought of how difficult life is for all of us. It is not easy for us to make the changes that are demanded of those who would attain maturity. Man finds his false security in the status quo. It is easier for him to stay where he is than to venture forth into new frontiers of truth seeking. Like a baby he feels uprooted if he is required to give up those stereotypes that seem to answer all his questions. He does not really want to think, though he kids himself into believing that he is quite liberal and open-minded. His mediocre environment makes it possible for him to pity those who are “in error,” while at the same time he has an inward resentment for excellence. If someone does by chance jar him loose from his complacency and causes him to face up to the real issues of life, he may well suffer the same desperation and anxiety of an uprooted child. But blessed are the sensitive, for they shall find the abundant life.

His name shall be called David Benjamin. He is named for relatives as well as those great heroes of Israel. Israel’s David “was skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.” Samuel saw him as “ruddy, beautiful eyes, handsome.” Most important of all is that he was a man after God’s own heart. Benjamin means “son of happiness’ and his story reveals how great a love a man can have for his brother and how much affection a father can show to a son. To Jacob little Benjamin was the son of his beloved Rachel; to Joseph he was a full brother and one whose hands were clean of the family treachery that had deeply wounded him. Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin and so she named him “son of my sorrow.” But Jacob insisted that he should he “son of happiness.” From sorrow to happiness: a short commentary on much of what life has to offer. So may it be with our Benjy.

This personal account was interrupted by a call to lunch. There was Benjy in his highchair munching and wrestling with a piece of toast, Phoebe dashing in and out as she prepared her own lunch to be eaten in the tent out in the yard now that she is an Indian, and Ouida attending to the chores of a busy mother. Amidst it all I saw Ouida studying the awkward motions of her new son. She turned to me and said, “How I adore that little boy.” And then I said to my beloved: “How fortunate he is to have you for his mother. It could have been so different. As I look out on a world troubled with hate, war, and hunger it is refreshing to see something so good as you and this little boy together.”

OUR PREACHERS AND CRIME

The Associated Press has issued from Chicago the story of Donald Hardage, 32, who has been indicted as the leader of a six-man robbery gang that cleared $30,000 in two supermarket holdups. The gang was caught in its effort to rob the same store for the third time. The news release explains that Hardage was formerly a Church of Christ minister in Dallas and that he was graduated from Abilene Christian College with highest honors in 1948. He turned to gambling when members of his Dallas congregation took him to Las Vegas. He told police in Chicago the gambling bug bit him. His prominent family in Florida gave him $40,000 to set up a business, but he soon lost it on the gambling boards of Las Vegas. He says now that he wants to plead guilty and serve his time.

A few months before the Associated Press released the story of William W. Crossman, 25, another Church of Christ minister who was indicted for abduction and rape in Joliet, Illinois. Crossman went out one night and held a knife to an 18-year old girl as she left a shopping center in Joliet, forced her into his car and drove to a rural area where he raped her at knife point. He went back out the very next night to do more “personal work.” By the same method he abducted another young lady and raped her. In the struggle one of the women broke the glass covering the clock on the car’s dashboard. With this description the police found the car parked on a Joliet street weeks later. They waited until Crossman returned from a movie with his wife and baby. He was lucky to escape the death penalty; he is now serving a 65-year sentence. All this time he was the regular minister for the Morris Church of Christ near Joliet. He was educated at Freed-Hardeman College, a Church of Christ training school in Tennessee.

Perhaps we should not include here the story of the Church of Christ minister involved in the quiz-show scandals, for Charles Van Doren is the expiation for all such!

These terrible tales of woe should help us to realize that our struggle against sin is a desperate one and that there is much more of the world in the church than we are willing to admit. A look at these two preaching brethren behind bars should cause us to blush rather than to rationalize. It is true that these things might have happened in anybody’s church, but it is significant that they took place among us. We are perhaps more critical of other religious people than any church on earth. We pass along lurid stories about priests and nuns. Snake-handlers, “Holy Rollers”, and Mormons are fodder for gibes. I’ve seen professors in our colleges crack jokes about people who kneel in prayer. We are so everlastingly right about everything, while others are in error. We are a kind of heavenly pets that have priority on truth. We are “the Church” while all others are sectarians. Through the years we have had little fellowship with the suffering people of the world. We are short on mercy.

We simply are not as humble as we ought to be. We know too much. We are too righteous. We would do well to pause amidst our vanity and immaturity long enough to wash the feet of “the sectarians” instead of to prepare lists of their ecclesiastical errors. We should declare a day for brotherhood soul-searching. It would be well on such a day for one of our publishing houses to issue another kind of book entitled “Why I Left.” This one would not be the usual diet of why some people left the different denominations to join us, but would be an account of why some of our best minds have left us. We are a people that has not yet learned to look at the other side of the coin. We cannot see ourselves as others see us. We make progress in building up what we call “the Church of Christ,” which is only a party movement and not a unity movement, and we have learned little about compassion and the alleviation of human misery.

There will not be much said about these robbers and rapists, especially by the guardians of “Christian Education.” It will be better to talk about Pat Boone and Bobby Morrow, who admittedly make better window pieces. No one is going to say, of course, that our Christian colleges are to blame for these criminal lives. By the same logic, however, the colleges should not make extravagant claims for the “Christian environment” of their campus life. If they insist on receiving praise for their many students who build homes without divorce, then they might share a bit of the blame for those who go wrong. The list of wrongdoers among our college products does not end, of course, with these extreme cases of crime. We have contributed mightily to a sensual culture. Sectarian pride may, after all, do far more harm to the Christian cause than those do who pay for their crimes behind prison walls Nor should we forget that our number of “degenerates” is as great as that of other religious people. Perhaps we have more cause to mourn Over our sins than to boast to the world that we are the New Testament church and that the problem of religious confusion is to be solved by everyone joining us.

Perhaps we have neglected the heart. Has religious austerity displaced the meekness and tenderness of Christ? Jesus rode a donkey, washed feet, dined with harlots and sinners, and prayed tenderly for his abusers. Do you know that Jesus? Maybe we need piety more than church edifices. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Let us look into the tomb of our own decadence and send up our lament. And let us learn to blush!

“Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?

No, they were not at all ashamed;

They did not know how to blush.” (Jer.6:15)

THE PURPOSE OF THIS JOURNAL

The publisher of Restoration Review, Clint Evans of Alton, Illinois, was recently in attendance at a religious retreat where a number of the participants were readers of this journal. In some of the informal conversations the topic of discussion turned to this publication and its editor. Mr. Evans was asked about the mission of Restoration Review. “Just what are you trying to do?” was in essence what they asked him. He has in turn suggested to me that we make clear what our purpose is. The intention of this editorial, therefore, is to spell out with some detail our mission in this publication.

Before I enumerate our aims I should first of all state that our general purpose is to support the cause of the Restoration Movement. We do not accept the view of some that the restoration of the ancient order is a reality. The concept of Restoration as initiated by the Campbells and other Disciple pioneers has not yet reacher maturation. In fact the Movement they started has been raped by the very unseemly forces that the Movement was intended to correct and which it opposed from its inception. I refer to the party spirit that is fostered through professionalism and institutionalism within the ranks of Disciples themselves.

I am saying that the Restoration Movement has not yet achieved the goal that gave it birth: the restoration of the New Testament ecclesia. Part of our task is to arouse our people to a realization of the fact that we have not only failed to complete the work that our pioneers began, but that we have sinned by allowing ourselves to divide into numerous parties, all but killing the work of the pioneers. The journal assumes, therefore, that the various segments of the Restoration Movement (principally identified as the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and Church of Christ) have very largely lost sight of the original purpose of our movement. Having lost our way we have been content to add at least three more denominations to our confused religious world. Even more serious is the fact that we cannot even get along with each other. The dissenting groups are hardly on speaking terms with each other. There is almost no contact. It appears that we are hopelessly divided, thus rupturing the very spirit that gave us birth.

Our overall purpose in supporting the cause of Restoration has three functions: (1) a plea for a re-evaluation of our condition as heirs of the Campbell movement; (2) a call for more contact and exchange of ideas between the existing factions; (3) an effort toward more unity and fellowship among all Disciples.

Every responsible publication has a philosophy that undergirds all aspects of its work. Usually that philosophy is a reflection of the mind of the editor himself. For good or bad a journal of this type is a kind of extension of the selfhood of the one who edits it. For this reason I am going to reveal to my readers some of the ideas that influence me as the editor of this journal. These may be thought of as structural concepts for a philosophy of restoration.

1. It is my conviction that the Restoration Movement is basically an intellectual endeavor. It has the sacred task of making people more intelligent. It believes that understanding is a gift of God, and that it is better to understand than not to understand. A restorationist is first of all an educator. His textbook is the Bible and the arts and sciences his resources. He believes that all truth is of God, and so he views science, mathematics, and literature as the work of God. To understand means to know the self and the world in which the self lives. This is why every restorationist is interested in psychology, anthropology, geology, history, philosophy and even the fine arts.

There is an anti-intellectualism among the heirs of the Restoration Movement. I see this as one of our most serious weaknesses. The tragedy is that it is often the institutions of learning that reflect this unholy attitude toward understanding. Some colleges of the Restoration Movement actually stifle the spirit of inquiry. They make almost no contribution to serious research or sophisticated criticism. Their approach to nearly all our problems is parochial. Instead of cultivating a free mind they direct an inquiring mind into the labyrinth of stereotypes and presuppositions.

The journals among us are in the main as anti-intellectual as the colleges and Bible schools. One can detect no vision of excellence. Many of the arguments that are repeated each generation without re-evaluation are puerile and inexcusable. Even more serious is the party spirit, which is the next of kin of the anti-intellectual spirit. Many of the papers among us close their columns to anyone that dares to think. I recall how one intelligent Disciple, a university law professor by the name of Gilbert O. Nations, sent an article to a Church of Christ journal in Nashville. The article, which was a thought-provoking evaluation of our idea of evangelism, happened to imply that Billy Graham was preaching the gospel. The editor returned the manuscript with a notation across the top of the first page that read, “We do not consider Billy Graham a gospel preacher.” It is just that simple! I suppose I could write a volume on such immaturities on the part of our journalists and educators. It is enough to say here that such is not the spirit of Alexander Campbell who gave to all Disciples the heritage of a free mind.

Those who fill the pulpits and teach in the Sunday schools but reflect the shallowness of journals and Bible colleges. The professional minister is almost always the product of the Bible college or seminary. He is probably a party man who follows the party line. His reading material is likely limited to what he gets from the party publication house, including the party organ. Even if he knows how to read the Bible (analytically, I mean) he is probably influenced by those stale interpretations that he learned in school, which he could never have learned by a fresh, creative examination of the Bible itself. Consequently his sermons are superficial, dull and unedifying. Their strength lie in their recapitulation of the party line-the do’s and don’t’s, the stereotypes, and the criteria of party loyalty. There are exceptions, of course, but it is usually a trying experience to sit through the typical performance. It takes a good sport to do it, or else one who thinks the devil will get him if he doesn’t. One often wonders after going through the ordeal if it really has to be that bad.

The restorationist is a reformer as well as an educator. This too calls for serious and responsible thinking. The reformer’s task is to expose the sin of over-simplification, which is always at the heart of religious decadence. He re-complexifies the great issues that puerile minds have made too easy. Since mediocrity resents excellence and since it is in man to be mentally lazy, the reformer has his cross to bear. He will be misunderstood and thus treated as an enemy rather than a friend. He will be feared, for his ideas are a threat to those who feel uneasy about change. The reformer is a threat to the security of those “who are at ease in Zion,” and so he must suffer their reprisals. “Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.”

I do not mean formal education when I refer to an intellectual approach to Restoration. Intelligence is not measured by degrees and diplomas. It is devotion to ideas that we need rather than the collection of sheepskins. While the restorationist certainly encourages formal education, he realizes that the affairs of the kingdom of God operate at the grassroots level, and that it is the common man that makes possible the revolutions that lead to reformation and restoration. I agree with Descanes, the French mathematician and philosopher, that all men are equally rational. One man can see the difference between right and wrong, truth and error as well as the next man. Man is essentially good. He responds to reason.

Restoration Review is a reasonable appeal to the average person who is willing to think. Though we believe in an intellectual approach, our mission is to the common man more than to the intelligentsia. We address a thinking class, but not especially the educated class. Restoration will become real when the baker, plumber, farmer, mechanic, clerk, business man and professional man can all move within the world of ideas. Religious studies will be exciting and edifying when the laboring man and professional man can share together in the great conversation. God never intended that his people congregate in order to listen to a professional minister preach sermons. The ecclesia is educationally effective when it provides opportunity for mutual ministry, the sharing of ideas by people who are busy studying and thinking. This began in the Jewish synagogue and it was continued in the early Christian assemblies. Christianity forfeited both its freedom and its creativity when it devised a clergy to do its thinking and talking.

Our mission, therefore, is to restore man’s dignity and individuality by making him a priest of God. To do this we must get him to think. He must understand that his mission is to minister, not to be ministered to.

We have now given the heart of the publication philosophy behind this journal. We will now state other ideas with more brevity.

2. I believe that the congregations of the Restoration Movement have lost their continuity with the past. Disciples are ignorant of their own history; they do not know where they have been, and consequently are vague about where they are going. When people are ignorant of history they often repeat the mistakes of history. It is our intention, therefore, that this journal may help tie together the cords of the past and present. The pioneers should be heard, criticized and re-evaluated. There is an evolutionary process to Restoration; one generation takes up where the preceding one left off.

3. The editor of this journal is convinced that it is absolutely imperative that measures be taken to cultivate more brotherliness among our divided people if the Restoration Movement is to be saved. Already we have been indifferent too long. The underlying fallacy of our excommunication of each other is the notion that “the unity of the Spirit,” which we are commanded to preserve in the bond of peace, is dependent upon doctrinal agreement. It is wrong to suppose that unity comes first, then fellowship; it is rather fellowship, then unity. We should be able to worship and work together and recognize each other as brother even if we have many different opinions Whether one is right or wrong in his views and practice regarding instrumental music has not one thing to do with the fellowship to be shared by all saints alike in Christ Jesus. This is a paramount issue in the publication of this journal.

4. We agree with Bacon that writing makes an exact man. A subsidiary aim is to give younger and less experienced men opportunity to test their ideas by writing for this journal. I might add that Bacon prefaced his remark with the statement that reading makes a full man and conversation a ready man. It is hoped that our writers will first be full and ready before they start writing.

Perhaps I should conclude by saying that we have enjoyed some success in the pursuit of these purposes. We have an army of people in discipledom who enjoy entertaining an idea. I teach my students that the best way to entertain a fellow is with an idea! Many people are eager to do some critical thinking and to move to higher levels of understanding. Our journal is austerely independent. It has no party line to propagate and no chestnut to snatch from the fire for sideline pygmies. People are responding favorably.

IS KENNEDY A FREE MAN?

In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention Senator Kennedy stated that he was a free man. He made it clear that he would not yield should any ecclesiastical pressures be applied to him as president to favor any particular minority group. On another occasion he stated that if any pope tried to tell him what to do that he would inform the pope that he was out of his place. All this sounds good to freedom-loving Americans. Presumably nearly everyone would acknowledge Kennedy’s sincerity in this regard. He probably does not entertain the slightest notion of being other than a free man as president of the United States. But there is a very significant incident in Kennedy’s life that should cause us to think a second time before we vote to put a Roman Catholic in the White House. The following quotation is lifted from a sermon delivered by Robert P. Gates at the First Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois, which was given before Kennedy was nominated.

“Now, finally let us see the validity of what I have just said concerning a man’s freedom to make his own decisions.

Many of you will recall the stirring story about the four chaplains who, during World War II, gave their life jackets to men on board the ship Dorchester. The four chaplains, stood arm in arm upon the bridge of that ship as it sank beneath the waters—‘One faith, One God, One Father of us all, who is above all, through all and in all.’

One of those young chaplains was a boy by the name of Clark Poling, his father was the famous Baptist minister, Dr. Dan Poling. It was decided that a commemoration of this event, and as a symbol of our unity under God, that a Chapel of Four Chaplains be erected in the heart of Temple University. The focal point of this Chapel is three altars, one Roman Catholic, one Jewish, and one Protestant, placed on a revolving platform, so that by turning the platform the Chapel can become a Roman Catholic, a Protestant, or a Jewish place of worship. To erect this Chapel, money was raised from friends of all faiths.

A financial campaign was started. In the fall of 1950, at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia a banquet was held that marked the conclusion of the active financial campaign. The toastmaster was Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts. United States Senator Herbert J. Lehman came as a special representative of President Truman to speak for his Jewish faith. The Honorable Charles P. Taft, mayor of Cincinnati, and president of the Federal Council of Churches, spoke for the Protestants.

The third key speaker was to have been Congressman John Kennedy of Massachusetts. He graciously accepted the invitation to take part in the program and speak for his Roman Catholic faith. Three lay speakers, all politicians, all good Americans.

But two days before the banquet, Mr. Kennedy telephoned Dr. Poling from Washington and said that he would have to cancel his appearance. His Eminence, Dennis Cardinal Daugherty of Philadelphia had requested him not to speak at the banquet and not to appear. Dr. Poling indicates that the Congressman’s distress was obvious as he relayed this information to him. Dr. Poling reminded Mr. Kennedy that the banquet was a civic occasion, and that all faiths were participating, and that they were not meeting in a Protestant Church, but in the neutral ground of a hotel. All speakers were laymen and politicians. John Kennedy replied that he understood all of this, and that he had done everything that he could to change the Cardinal’s position. His speech was prepared, he said, and he would gladly forward it to Dr. Poling. But as a loyal son of the Church, he had no alternative but not to come!

Unquestionably, Mr. Kennedy was grieved as he reported Cardinal Daugherty’s decision, and unquestionably he was profoundly embarrassed.

Here we see the terrible tragedy of a valiant American—Jack Kennedy was decorated by his country for bravery under fire—having to bow to the authority of the Bishop of Philadelphia, against his own good conscience and against his own wishes.”

We join Mr. Gates in questioning whether such a man is indeed free to act according to his own judgment. Notice that this was a civic occasion that was attempting to honor all faiths. No Roman Catholic was being asked to go to a Protestant church, but to a hotel meeting of leading laymen and politicians. Notice too that Kennedy wanted to take part; his speech was prepared; he had accepted the invitation sometime previously. But Kennedy could not take part because an ecclesiastic told him not to. As a loyal son of the church he obeyed the bishop.

Suppose congress passes some kind of birth control bill for the backward nations? Suppose it is necessary for the president to attend a meeting with Russians in Moscow? How about the president signing a bill to aid public schools that excludes parochial schools? How about a thousand other things that deeply concern the Roman hierarchy? After all, they claim that the pope has authority of “faith and morals,” which is made to apply to nearly everything, including politics.

The chances are that Kennedy could get through a term or two in the White House without any crucial conflicts arising between his faith and American democracy. But he has already demonstrated to us what he will do should the pope speak. He did not tell Cardinal Daugherty that he was out of his place in dictating to him about making a speech in a Philadelphia hotel. Nor will he so speak to the pope. Kennedy is a loyal son of Romanism.

That is why he did not go to Philadelphia. Such a one has no business going to the White House.

Some of the Roman Catholic writers, as well as a few Protestants, are telling us that we are bigots if we make religion an issue in the campaign. What is a bigot? Webster defines the term as “one obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.” Who was the bigot in the story of the Chapel of Four Chaplains? I cannot vote for a Roman Catholic for high office until he demonstrates in no uncertain conduct that he will not be dictated to by bigots. Mr. Kennedy made it quite clear that he will permit ecclesiastical bigots to tell him what to do!

COME IN FROM THE PERIPHERY

By a look at some of our periodicals one would suppose that the most crucial questions facing our generation concern congregational cooperation, instrumental music, the place of orphan homes, whether to teach the Bible in classes, the use of cups in the Lord’s Supper, premillennialism, Herald of Truth, professional pastors, missionary societies―and where shall I stop? Certain papers champion certain causes. A few are vitriolic and bombastic. Others are naive and mediocre. Too many are instances of inconsequential journalism. As a people we know too little and our concerns are shallow. We are out on the periphery rather than involved in the things that matter most.

Several of the branches of discipledom have little or no interest in ecumenicity. To them the World Council of Churches, and the National Council as well, is either a communist cell or a confraternity of infidels. The instances of unity achieved by various bodies in recent years would make little impression on them. These Disciple fissions are not in fact a part of the Restoration Movement. They are rather parties within Christendom whose chief concern is their own perpetuation. They are not a unity movement, and in fact they have no interest in unity-conformity, yes, but not unity. The answer to all the grave religious issues is for others to conform to their particular standard of loyalty. They have the blueprint for the New Testament church. All the answers are worked out and all the problems solved.

“The kingdom of God does not mean food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 14:17) If the king. dom is not food and drink, then it may not be organs, cups, and radio programs. We must beware lest in tithing mint, dill, and cummin we neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. Our concerns are not central; they are peripheral.

There is a question as to whether we are even biblicists, even though we make the Bible our only creed. These words from Alexander Camp. bell might challenge our thinking on this point:

I solemnly say that although I was considered at the age of twenty-four a much more systematic preacher and text expositor than I am now considered, and more accustomed to strew my sermons with scores of texts in proof of every point, I am conscious that I did not understand the New Testament―not a single book of it. Matthew Henry and Thomas Scott were my favorite commentators. I read the whole of Thorn. as Scott’s commentary in my family worship, section by section.

I began to read the scriptures critically. Works of criticism from Michaelis down to Sharp, on the Greek article, were resorted to. While these threw light on many passages, still the book as a whole, the religion of Jesus Christ as a whole, was hid from me.

I took the naked text and followed common sense; I read it, subject to the ordinary rules of interpretation, and thus it was it became to me a new book. Then I was called a natural man, because I took the natural rules of interpretation. Till then I was a spiritual man, and a regenerated interpreter. But, alas! as I learned my Bible I lost my orthodoxy. . . (Mill. Harb. I, p. 138)

I am persuaded that many of my brethren would lose their “soundness” as Campbell lost his orthodoxy if they too learned the Bible. It is rather easy to quote a lot of passages, sprinkling verses amidst a mouthful of cliches. One can deliver “wonderful sermons” and still be superficial in his knowledge of the Word. He can be shallow and yet be honored as one of the strongest men in the brotherhood if the brotherhood itself is shallow. Notice that even after Campbell waded through Scott and Henry, and even though he quoted the Bible left and right in his many sermons, he still did not understand the Word―not a single book of it!

Take the book that we probably know best of all, Acts of Apostles. I am persuaded that if many of our so-called Bible scholars could be exposed to a real study of Acts that they would be amazed as to what it is all about. They might even reject it as unorthodox. So God forbid that we speak of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Romans or Revelation! It is one thing to study the Bible by following the familiar trails of party emphasis; it is something else to study it analytically and objectively.

One indication of our superficiality is the interpretation we give certain passages in order to prove our point or else to prove somebody wrong. I suppose I have heard one hundred of our preachers quote Amos 3:3 - “How can two walk together except they be agreed?”as a proof text for unity; that is, we cannot unite unless we agree, which incidentally is wrong. But Amos 3:3 has no more reference to unity that it has to cornbread and buttermilk. Then in Amos 6:5 we have our proof text against instrumental music! If this verse makes instrumental music wrong, the preceding verse makes it wrong to eat lamb. These passages illustrate the fallacy of divorcing verses from their context. But these interpretations are perpetuated through sermon outlines and the “hop, skip and jump” type of biblical study.

Heb. 10:25 is made into an admonition for those who sometimes fail to come to church on Sunday; 2 John 9 is used to prove that one is not a true believer if he is wrong on some doctrinal matter, i.e., the “doctrine of Christ” is made to mean everything the Bible teaches, including all the orthodox interpretations! Eph. 3:10 is used by some to prove that it is the church (not human institutions) that is to make known God’s wisdom, which is a gross misinterpretation of the passage. Eph. 4:13 is made to refer to the coming of the complete New Testament. Rom. 16:17 becomes a proof text for “withdrawing fellowship” from dissidents. And on and on it goes. Many passages are given slanted meanings so as to befuddle the sectarians. I have heard men say when certain of their arguments were questioned, “Well, I haven’t found a sectarian yet that could answer it!”

We are too greatly troubled about matters that are of lesser importance. To question the use of instrumental music is in order, but part of the Disciples have made this more than a question; it is well nigh a part of the gospel and a test of Christian fellowship. We have talked about it, written about it, and debated it for two generations now. And how much good has all this done? Is it really as clear as many of us think? I think we owe it to the cause of unity to declare a moratorium on this subject for a few years and spend our energies on more vital subjects. So it is with congregational cooperation. The “Herald of Truth” fuss has about reached the place where everyone who will debate has debated it and both sides are saying the same thing over and over again with neither side paying much respect to what the other says. I suggest that we suspend this wrangle for awhile, especially since it is only causing more and more hate and drawing tighter and tighter standards of what it means to be loyal.

Ours is a troubled world. If ever it needed informed and responsible Christians it needs them now. We have neglected so many vital subjects: What is the Christian philosophy of history? What is the Christian’s relationship to the social order? What is Christian education? How can we create more love in our world of hate? What is the kingdom of God? We know far too little about the great religious themes: sin, regeneration, prophecy, revelation, natural religion, problem of evil, Christian ethics, priesthood, and many others. A glance at Lard’s Quarterly or Campbell’s Extras in the Millennial Harbinger will illustrate what I mean. Take Camp. bell’s dissertation on the kingdom of God, for instance. Most of what our people say about the kingdom is a few belabored statements designed to prove that the kingdom and the church are the same thing and we have proof texts for that too!

Come in from the periphery! It may be a long and arduous journey, one calling for self-scrutiny as well as self-discipline, humility as well as painstaking study, but how glorious it will be. You will discover that God’s family is much greater than you thought, and you will be amazed to find out how difficult the real problems are in contrast to the superficiality of those that previously concerned you.

PAROCHIAL, INDEED!

Previously I set forth some ideas about the parochial education of many “Church of Christ” and “Christian Church” institutions. This incident will further illustrate what I mean: An applicant for a faculty position was being interviewed by the president of one of our Christian colleges. The president insisted that if the applicant joined his staff there were three things that must be understood at the outset. Here they are as enumerated to me by the applicant himself: (1) that the administration has authority over all aspects of the college program; (2) that you be not merely one who does not believe premillennialism, but that you be adamantly opposed to it; and (3) that you adjust yourself to segregation and not be a “red hair” about Christian colleges enrolling negroes.

Surely no one could object to the first stipulation. It is so necessary and so obvious that an administration be in authority that one would wonder why such a point would even come up. Knowing as I do that this particular college has had trouble “keeping men in line” with “Church of Christ” theology, I can see why the president would feel a man out on this point. Administrative “authority” is not therefore a protective measure for a professor’s academic freedom, but a device to whip him in line with brotherhood austerities. I have in my files a letter from a former professor of this particular college, and he explains that it was the demand for conformity that led him finally to make the break and go to a state college.

The next two postulates are explicit. The would-be Christian educator must conform to a particular interpretation of the kingdom, and issue the usual cliches against premillennialism. This is being loyal, you know, and the good ole Christian college is the keeper of orthodoxy! To anyone with a sense of liberal education this kind of thing stinks. Suppose amidst his studies that the instructor began to entertain some doubts about the traditional arguments against premillennialism? Either he would have to be quiet about it and continue to mouth the same old threadbare arguments, or he would have to suffer the usual abuses and finally be given the heave-ho. The worst thing that can happen to the instructors in our Christian colleges is for them to get an education! Once that calamity befalls them they must either give up both their freedom and their honesty or else look for a job somewhere else. A few of them solve their problem by being like the ostrich.

The third stipulation reminds us that the racial problem is indeed a real one all over this country, and especially in the southland. No doubt some reformers have been rash or “red hairs,” as the president put it. It will take time and patience to achieve integration. It is pathetic that the leaders of Christian education have not the courage to take the initiative to integrate their own private colleges. At a recent lectureship at one of these colleges a professor issued a stinging rebuke for this failure, contending that the colleges were not truly Christian for drawing a color line. It does seem strange that they would stage missionary rallies for the education of the colored of Nigeria, while in their own colleges refuse to enroll a man because of the color of his skin. Does it take a ruling from the Supreme Court to get us to do what Jesus has already told us to do?

This is parochialism. It is narrow, sectarian, stereotyped education rather than a liberal education. It is not only restricted to whites, but those whites must be taught those things that conform to party standards, and they must be taught by men who kow-tow. I might add that this particular applicant who told me his story did not kow-tow. That means of course that he is not loyal!