A FUNNY THING HAS HAPPENED TO THE CHURCH OF CHRIST

Maybe it isn’t so funny after all. It may depend on whether you are in with the powers that be or out. But whether you are in or out, you are bound to be in for some laughs, provided you are willing to laugh at yourself or, more accurately, those of us who make up the Churches of Christ.

I am referring to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven, a new book by Gary Freeman, soon to be issued by Harper and Row. The advance review copy that Ouida and I have already read in bed, out of bed, at breakfast, all over the house has me wondering how it is going to be received by our people. Usually I am a prophet regarding such things, but not this time. One might suppose that not a one of our outlets will touch it with a ten foot pole, but then again, for a major publishing house to give so much attention to the Church of Christ, it is going to be hard to ignore it.

It is a parody on a preacher’s life in the Church of Christ, Gary Freeman being that preacher, more or less, we may suppose. Gary is a satirist, a diabolical satirist, and he is at his best “on the way to heaven.” One does not get the impression that he is mad at anybody or even hurt. It is rather a “You wouldn’t believe it, bur here’s what happened” attitude. It is a matter-of-fact look at the Church of Christ from an insider, and Gary admits one has to be on the inside to understand what goes on.

He assures us in the preface that “There’s not a word of truth in the following story. I don’t just mean that the story is fiction, which is obvious enough. I mean it isn’t based on anything. The religious attitudes portrayed herein are preposterous. They’re completely unlike any I’ve ever seen. There are no churches like this one, no people like Dr. Thorndike and Allbright and Charles Francis Duncan, no schools like Sinai Christian College.”

He further says: “The very idea that innocent people can get crushed in ecclesiastical machinery, or that there is any tension between idealism and institutionalism, is too fantastic to require refutation. Readers who think they see dim parallels somewhere should be locked up.”

I told you he is a diabolical satirist. Those words are only a taste of what you are in for. Before you finish the book you will not only admit that you should be locked up, but you’ll probably be willing for the key to be thrown away.

Some of us will see at least a “dim parallel” between our alma mater and Sinai Christian College, which Gary places in “a medium-sized town situated in the vast expanses of West Texas.” The college is located on a hill in the northwest part of town, and is referred to as “the Hill” by the brethren, but as “Mt. Olympus” by the Methodists and Baptists, who also have colleges in the town.

Equally identifiable is the editor of The Militant Contender, who leads a fight against the biology textbooks in the state schools because they are tainted with evolution, but who is so ignorant he doesn’t know the difference between a molecule and a molehill. Then there is the big-time evangelist who preaches against slang and conducts his own campaign against a widely-used hymnal because it is tainted with premillennialism. In Cletus Kinchelow’s congregation, presumably Gary’s prototype, the songbooks are disposed of by giving them to the Negro church.

Cletus’ church is called The True Church, which does not use instrumental music and believes it is the only true church and its members the only Christians. He has a round of experiences that move him gradually into the larger Christian world, especially when he goes to seminary, where he finds the professors eminently Christian rather than heretical liberals as he had been told.

He becomes disenchanted with the status quo of The True Church and its lack of interest in social ills. He describes its institutional politics as both real and merciless. A “liberal” preacher can be crushed by editors and big preachers. When Cletus shares his views with fellow ministers, he finds they have his misgivings about The True Church being right about everything, and they even weigh the question of whether it might not be seriously wrong in its attitudes and practices. But they agree that if there is the slightest hint to the powers that be about their doubts that they will be destroyed.

Cletus gets by all right with his doubts until he writes a play about politics in The True Church, which is naively selected by the drama instructor at Sinai Christian College. Once the play unfolds on the stage at “the Hill” Cletus is consigned to an asylum by the president of the college.

The play is ingenious and remarkably descriptive of the struggle of young, intelligent professors at Sinai Christian College to be both free and true to college and church. It is the drama of conflict between idealism and institutionalism.

The play is Gary Freeman at his best. It was performed at Cletus’ college during its annual Bible lectureship, and it was devastating. But it is hardly conceivable that such a play could ever really be performed on “the Hill” out West Texas way.

In the play the college president gallantly sacrifices his own professor son to the ecclesiastical gallows for his liberal views, along with others, while a colleague comes to his defense, emotionally describing the crucible through which one goes in trying to remain an honest man amidst traditionalism.

The president speaks: “There can be no compromise in our position. We are the only church that has no other creed but the Bible. We speak where the Bible speaks, we are silent where the Bible is silent. Nadab and Abihu were struck down because they brought strange fire before the altar. God told Noah to build the ark out of gopher wood, not birch or maple or oak or teakwood.”

So the heads fall, including the president’s son. Butler, the president’s assistant, was the one who “tightened the screw” by conducting a farce of an investigation. He was ably assisted by Baker, his girl secretary whom he addressed by her last name.

The play closes with Baker and Butler talking. The gore had been spilled and the bloody mess was over. Butler is asking his secretary how the final session went (the trial), for he couldn’t bear to be present.

Baker: Oh, according to the usual form, sir. Young Thorndike (the president’s son), Miller, and Crawford were dismissed from the school, without severance pay, of course. Then they were read out of the church. Their candlesticks were taken up one by one by President Thorndike and smashed to kingdom come.

Butler: Thorndike was right, of course. The code must be honored above all things. There’s no doubt the three young men were guilty as charged. They should have remembered that we’re the only church which takes the Bible only as its creed. We speak where the Bible speaks, and we’re silent where the Bible is silent.

Baker: The case of Nadab and Abihu shows that we’re not to bring strange fire before the altar sir. Which is why we don’t use instrumental music.

Butler: For that matter, Baker, consider the case of Noah. He was told to make the ark out of gopher wood. Not a word about birch or maple or oak.

Baker: (tidying up the room or desk) : Or teakwood, sir?

Butler: (drinking his coffee and be ginning to read) : Or teakwood.

I must admit that I laughed until the tears came at those last lines, and yet the play, though a parody, speaks volumes as to the lengths to which we have gone to preserve our party.

A few quotes from here and there in the book will whet your curiosity for more.

“The brethren tend to get a little panicky on the subject of doctrinal soundness. If it had been a question of ethics, no one would have missed a beat.”

“The funny thing about it is that the college doesn’t even teach one philosophy course.”

“We must get over the disease of believing that we’re the one true church.”

“We have an unwritten creed just as definitive as any church ever put down on paper.”

(The last two statements were ones that got the college professors fired.)

“Is it possible that we’ve been wrong all the time? Not just wrong about what we say. But wrong in a more serious way? Wrong about what we imply, wrong about what we don’t say and don’t stand for, wrong deep in our hearts?”

“I finished out the year (of seminary) and considered quitting. I was afraid to go on. I was afraid I would discover that he and the Others were right. And I knew very well that if I ever came to believe they were right, I was finished.”

“The way we figured it, not using instrumental music was about the greatest coup any church ever pulled off. In the back of our minds we could see St. Peter at the pearly gates, letting the lucky ones through and sending the evil ones to their just roasting and saying, “He didn’t use it, he used it . . .” etc.

“We’ve focused so long on the sins of other churches that we’ve become the most incredible incongruity of all: a church without pity.”

You’ll laugh and weep with Cletus as he struggles his funny way to heaven. There’s the brother who confessed to him that he had committed adultery with 500 women. There’s his diatribe against the seminary professor for disturbing the easy answers he had learned at Sinai. There’s the psychologist who examines him once he’s confined to the asylum. You’ll scream! Are you sold or shall I go on?

Well, the college president and the editor of The Militant Contender finally visit with Cletus at the asylum and tell him how to get along in the brotherhood. It is quite a conversation. Many a Cletus have heard the story on how to get along. Cletus was to write an article for The Militant Contender to show the brethren how sound he was! But Cletus refuses, at least for the moment, for he does not want to “bend and scrape and fawn.”

At this point Cletus accuses the brethren of not really believing in Jesus, not the real Jesus. “They may romanticize his memory it helps control the natives but they think the real Jesus belongs in a cage somewhere with a keeper to feed him peanuts.”

But the editor and college president tell Cletus of a big church in Dallas that has a vacant pulpit. At last He capitulates, more or less. The book closes with him at Fourth and Izzard True Church in Dallas. He wrote the article, but did not sell out. He is older and wiser now. He likes being on the lectureships and being invited out to dinner and being treated as sane. They compliment his sermons. He has learned to be discreet.

He decides that the important thing is to save the organism, even if men must be sacrificed, along with their wives and children.

But one must never ask the question, “For what?”

But with all of that you have but a tithing of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven. It is almost the only instance of a major publishing house issuing anything from one of us. This alone makes it significant. We conclude that Harper and Row is publishing the book because they believe it says something important to and about religion in America.

If you are in the Church of Christ and do not read this book, you ought to be locked up. If we can read it and laugh at ourselves, it will indicate that we are growing. Those I’m concerned about are those who will refuse to read it, or if they do, they’ll see nothing funny about it in the least.

We do not know about other Church of Christ outlets, but we’re ordering a big box of the books. You can have a copy for 3.95, the going price. If you order at once, we will put your order in the mail on the day of publication, May 21. They are not to be sold before that date.

In the meantime, let’s all stand by to see what happens to this book. Gary wrote me that Restoration Review was the only brotherhood medium that said anything about his last book, Are You Going to Church More But Enjoying It Less?”

What will happen this time? I don’t know. But I do know that a funny thing has happened to the Church of Christ on its way to heaven.—the Editor