FRESH WINDS OF GOD
ROY KEY

Brother James Bales’ comments on my “Letter to Mother and Daddy” were gracious. To read them was to rejoice in the awareness that someone is opening the windows to let the breath of God blow in. I appreciate the evident spirit of good will and grace even to forgive.

I would not try to refute the commentary. Much of it is what I preached and still preach. I am grateful that Bales is not called to pay as high a price for saying it as others of us had to pay.

To three particular comments I respond. First, Bales implies that the narrow, sectarian background in which I was nurtured is not at all typical, but is the unfortunate exception to the happy rule. We generalize from our own experience. My letter was penned after forty-two years’ observation, twenty of them from the pulpit. I am about the same age as Bales, a graduate of two of our best schools (Lipscomb and Pepperdine), contributed to ten different publications, and served in the South, West, Northeast and Midwest.

Bales tends to look with paternal spirit on my experience, while I must conclude that he grew up in a privileged area. Also, I conclude that conditions have over the years improved, and that improvement is now accelerated. That he was able to do what others of us in other situations could do only at the peril of ostracism is a matter which he is hardly in position to understand. But I assure him and you that it is for me a matter of rejoicing and thanksgiving.

Second, Bales affirms, “In a lapse of charity and in a manifestation of unfair judgment, Key accuses us of being self-righteous, like the Pharisees (pp. 122-123).” He calls it a “blanket . . . accusation” and “wholesale charge.” If that is the message my words convey, I apologize. I did not mean them so. I have not to this day meant to stand aside from “the self-righteous” and thunder judgment.

Such expressions as “we generally” and “many of our brethren” were intended as qualifying phrases introducing my discussion. The difference between us, as I see it, though, is that while we both know “self-righteousness” has been around, Bales believes it has not been characteristic of the mainstream Brotherhood life, and I believe it has been there as big as day for any who have eyes to see.

Let my comments about “self-righteousness” be studied in the light of a single question: What is the ground of our hope? You will see that my contention is that our people have, by and large, rested their confidence on their right understanding of and compliance with a select number of doctrinal commands.

Ultimately our security lay in our “rightness” about these “essentials.” As pride in our cardinal sin, so self-justification is our prime temptation. This is our common condition in a world of sin. And note how subtly temptation can rear its head at the very moment we are discussing salvation through Christ, security not in our own knowledge, but in Him on Whom we with perpetual penitence trust. Bales says,

An attitude which I have long heard preached, and which needs to be stressed, is that none of us is right within himself, but the Bible is right, and we should study and measure ourselves in the light of the Bible.

The assumption, unstated but plain, is that when I have conformed myself to the Bible, then I am right. This, however, is not the Gospel. The “righteousness of faith” is a “rightness” God gives us (imputes, accounts, reckons) when we are clearly in the wrong as measured by the Bible. This “Good News” is for us who have failed and are not “right” in ourselves, but God accepts us for nothing but the willingness to be accepted.

It is “the scandal” of affirming, “But if without any works to his credit (one) simply puts his faith in him who acquits the guilty, then his faith is indeed ‘counted as righteousness’.” (Rom. 4:5, TEV).

Paul left himself wide open to misunderstanding. So had Jesus. So will everyone who preaches the same Gospel. We dare not disparage the Bible. We must know about our Lord in order to know Him. But somewhere, sometime we must face this truth: so long as my trust is in measuring myself by the Bible well enough to fulfill its requirements for salvation, it is grounded in SELF and not in CHRIST!

Unless my confidence is in the “rightness” of Christ, not my fulfillment of God’s requirements, however “right” and however “right” the Bible which details them, I have fallen away from grace! I conclude unequivocally that any view which rests on my “rightness”—intellectually, ethically, legally—is destructive of the Gospel and is in reality a doctrine of “self-righteousness.”

Only when I quit pleading my rightness about anything as the ground of my standing before God do I turn away from justification by works to salvation through faith. Then at last I simply hurl myself upon the mercy of Christ. Until then I have not given up every ground of boasting and every occasion for pride.

My attempt here has been to make clear my usage of the term “self-righteousness.” I employ it with care and intended precision, not as a sanctified curse-word to hurl at others. Nor do I limit it to a few. The sin is universal. Brother Bales does well to warn against it, for when we feel most free from it, we may be most ensnared. There is never a moment when we do not stand before God through sheer mercy.

Third, Bales indicates that there was no need to change fellowships to find freedom to live and work. I confess that had I been a better Christian, I would doubtless have done many things differently. All I can say is that given who I was, where I was, the particular circumstances, and the demands of Christian discipleship, I could not do otherwise. Looking back over seven years, I still do not see how I could do differently.

There is but one Church of Jesus Christ. I did not leave it, nor have I any intention of leaving. Through the years one must choose where in the Church he is called to serve. In any move I always seek the will of God as best I can discern it. And here is the procedure I use: study of Scripture, seeking counsel of the best and wisest people at hand, discerning the movement of events and pressure of circumstance, and wrestling the whole matter through in prayer. In it all I try to use the best sense I have been given.

Through such a procedure there came a moment when the climatic decision of Paul spoke to me. He was a Jew, always a Jew, loving the Jews and wanting to work with them and for them, giving to them all that he had. Yet, with a knife thrust in his heart, he finally had to say, “Lo, I turn to the Gentiles!”

He did not mean, “I withdrew fellowship from you and no longer consider you my people.” No! He meant, “Since you will not let me work with you, I am compelled to go to people who will receive me.” He did not quit loving them or praying for them or even working for them wherever he could. And I have tried to follow the same course.

For the communion that nourished me I am grateful. To the friends with whom I studied and worked and played and prayed, my heart is still open and my hand extended. I pledge myself even now to do all I know to bridge the gulf, except to alter the Gospel and compromise the Saviorhood of Christ.

I conclude with the closing words of Brother Bales, changing only my name for his. “My attitude toward Bales is one of good will and personal friendliness. I pray the Lord will have mercy on him, and on me also.” And I thrill to remember a promise that begins, “Whenever two of you on earth agree about anything you pray for . . . !” (Matt. 18:19, TEV).—First Christian Church, Sixth and Clark Streets, Ames, Iowa 50010.