THEY WENT BACK TO THE SALVATION ARMY

Back in the early 1950’s when I was a student at Harvard it was my pleasure to minister to a number of Churches of Christ in the area. One of these was at Worcester, Mass., a city whose name I was never quite able to pronounce to the satisfaction of its natives. The memories come rushing through my mind as I recall the several visits to this typical New England city, which always impressed me as a foreign city when compared to what I was used to back in Texas. I made the trip from Cambridge by bus, and it seems that there was always lots of snow and ice. But there were warm-hearted brethren, most of whom had moved up from the South, but a few of whom were New Englanders through and through.

One such brother and his wife had come to us from the Salvation Army. They were a hospitable family, and I was consequently a frequent visitor in their home, enjoying the New England cuisine that one does not soon forget. The brother and his wife had the zeal that we have learned to associate with those who are converted from the sects. They were eager to do things for the Lord. They told of their labor of love while soldiers in the Salvation Army. He was an officer for them, and his conversion to the Church of Christ was doubtless a blow to the Army in the area. And they were indeed a prize catch for the Church of Christ, for they were a solid, native Worcester family, and we were a little group struggling to establish a beachhead in a very difficult field. For years they were the backbone to that work.

Then, lo and behold, they left us. Back to the Salvation Army they went. Even then I was supposed to be something of a “liberal”, being at Harvard and all, but I was not yet ready to believe that one could walk out on us like that without something being seriously wrong with him. You know, “Concerning those who were once enlightened . . . “ I did not quite see then that one might be lost to the Church of Christ without being lost to the Christ. I can see now that he might walk out on us without walking out on the Lord. It disturbed me then far more than it would now, even though I still prefer that our dissenting brethren stick around and help us cultivate the kind of brotherhood they want us to be by correcting the deficiencies that tempt them to walk out.

I had not thought of this Worcester family for years, but while watching the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena on TV I was impressed with the float entered by the Salvation Army. The theme of the parade, which was led by Senator Dirkson, serving as grand marshal, was “Life’s Greatest Adventure.” The Army entry, which was rather modest in comparison to its exquisite competitors, featured the idea that “To Love the Unloved” is life’s greatest adventure.

I thought of that New England family that had left the Salvation Army to join the Church of Christ, but had returned to them after being with us for several years, to the chagrin and disappointment of us all. “That’s why they left,” I said to myself, “for with us they were missing life’s greatest adventure.”

The brother explained to us Church of Christ folk why he felt compelled to rerum to the Army. It was simply that he wanted to do more for the down and out, and that he missed the satisfaction of doing something for fallen humanity that he had while an officer in the Salvation Army. At that time our little group was meeting in a residence that we had purchased, and we had plans of erecting a building on the large lot someday, and we were working to that end. The brother seemed to feel that the Church of Christ had ambitions to solidify its position in his city, but little or no interest in comforting the poor and needy.

He was thoroughly converted to the doctrinal soundness of our position, and this sustained him for a long time. After all, the Church of Christ is right. But he had been conditioned to believe that the essence of Christianity is to be like Christ, to give one’s self to the alleviation of human suffering to the glory of God.

I recall my fumbling efforts to dissuade the brother from leaving us. They were such a fine Christian family with delightful teenagers, and we needed them. We had too few as it was. It was a matter of his believing in Church of Christ doctrine but in the Salvation Army’s practice, and I found it difficult to convince him that doctrine is more important than practice. It didn’t make sense to think of him as a heretic or as one who was “falling from grace,” for he was taking steps that would enable him to serve Christ more, not less. He was not leaving because of the allurements of the world, as Paul said Demas did, but because he wanted to involve himself in the human predicament like Jesus did. He left, not because we made religion too difficult, but because we made it too easy.

If I had it to do over my approach to him would have been different. (I would have commended him for his desire to be truly Christian in giving succor to the poor. I don’t think any of us troubled ourselves to do that, for we were not thinking of the poor that he wanted to help, but of our own difficult task to build another church in Worcester.) I would have pointed out that the Church of Christ with which he had identified himself for some years was a great and glorious brotherhood with much to offer the Christian world. But I would have admitted that we have some serious deficiencies and that in some important ways we were imminently unchristian. I would have urged him to stay with us in order to persuade us that the Church of Christ should also be doing what the Salvation Army is doing.

I would have suggested that he just might go back to the Salvation Army and do the good works that his heart yearned for without leaving the Church of Christ. We could then introduce him as a brother who is a Christian all week as a soldier in the Salvation Army and a Christian on Sunday by being a member of the Church of Christ! Seriously, something like this could have proved satisfactory, for the brother recognized the importance of the Lord’s Supper and of gathering with the saints around His table on Lord’s Day. So he could have kept meeting with us and still worked with the Salvation Army, and he could have also enjoyed the sense of mission in endeavoring to lead us to be more mindful of the poor.

But my view of fellowship was not then sufficiently broad to make such a suggestion. So we lost him and his family. But I repeat: that doesn’t mean the Lord lost him. Perhaps the dear brother had to do what he did. He may have found the Lord’s words impelling: “Inasmuch as you did it unto one of these, the least of my brothers, you did it unto me.”

Indeed, life’s greatest adventure is to love the unloved. We have much to learn from the Salvation Army. Let us not be so self-deceptive as to assume that Jesus fed the poor in order to make members of the Church of Christ out of them. He ministered to them because they had need and because He loved them.

It is tragic if we miss life’s greatest adventure because of our concern for doctrinal purity or our preoccupation with self-maintenance.

Let us face the painful fact that the Church of Christ is not where one should cast his lot if he desires to give his life to suffering humanity. The most miserable of God’s creatures would knock on many a door asking for help before they would ever knock at our door. And even then some of them, because of their color, might feel compelled to knock at the back door.

After all, what is the Church of Christ trying to do in places like Worcester, Mass.? Establish itself. This consists in gathering a southern colony as a nucleus and proceeding to make things as they are in Nashville and Dallas or Abilene and Lubbock. We build buildings and pay a preacher to minister to us as soon as we are able. We preach sermons and baptize a few. We have a system going that we call a faithful church, one that is maintained according to the status quo. It is ours, bearing the right name and repeating the right externals.

We are in the real estate business more than in the business of making men whole. An announcement out of Fort Worth is to the effect that two big churches are going to unite and make one big, big church and erect a million dollar edifice. This is what the Church of Christ is doing in Fort Worth. But what is the Salvation Army doing? How about their buildings?

We may assume this to be the goal of our congregations in the so-called difficult fields. The ultimate is to be big and influential like the churches in Texas and Tennessee. It is a rare congregation indeed that has any such intentions as the Salvation Army. There are of course encouraging signs that we are becoming more Christian, such as that congregation up north that sold its building in suburbia and moved to the inner-city so that it could minister to those living in the slums.

We can believe that we are maturing, and part of the maturation process is for us to see that there are good reasons for people to leave us. They tire of building programs and sermonizing, of cliches and piddling, of politics and partyism, and of going to church all the time and sitting. They want to do something for Jesus. They want to be a blessing to those who are suffering. They want to think and question. They want to ignore Nashville and Abilene and Austin and Lufkin and be free men in Christ. They want to share in life’s greatest adventures.

And so they leave. Many others would if they were younger. Many others who are young are tempted to.

But we hope they don’t, for we need them more than anyone else does. We brought them into the Church of Christ. Now their mission can be to lead us to the Christ. What a blessed thought!