READERS' EXCHANGE

 

Freedom and Structure

The following letter from an editor of a leading Disciples publication will be of interest to those who are willing to take a critical look at ourselves in reference to other groups of the Restoration Movement. It is difficult for us to imagine that others, towards whom we have directed all sorts of charges, may be as “scriptural” as ourselves and even freer than ourselves.

Your comments about my editorial were greatly appreciated. Although I never hesitate to differ with other people in my editorial writing, I do like the overall effect to be helpful and not detrimental. There is no value in a completely negative approach to our problems, so far as I can see.

You have hit upon the real issue, I think. It is a question of whether we can be “free and structured” and also whether others can be “free and unstructured.” I really was greatly alarmed, more than I expressed in my editorial, about the lack of freedom that is felt by many ministers in the North American. They are not free to speak against their system if they want to continue to work and move along as their ability warrants. I really do believe our congregations and ministers are free. If one does not believe so, he ought to attend a few general board meetings and read my mail for a week. I think our congregations will do whatever they do on structure and union on the basis of what they want to do, not because they feel they have to do something.

As a church historian, I would have to say that all three groups are on the way toward closer structure. You are where we were at the turn of the century and the North American is where we were in 1917. I am amazed that a hundred congregations would send their money to one single congregation and let it and its elders operate the missionary program. That’s a kind of structure Disciples couldn’t effect! I read in Firm Foundation an invitation from Highland Park (Abilene?) to congregations all over the country to send its elders money to help support 100-plus missionaries serving under that congregation. In line with your last sentence, if that is “being scriptural,” then I have no fear that the Lord will accept our United Christian Missionary Society and the North American’s Brazil Christian Mission.

This brings my best regards and good wishes for a fine semester—and no campus riots.

When I am reminded of such inconsistencies of ours as vehemently opposing missionary organizations, conventions, and seminaries when we have the same things with different names, it disturbs me only moderately, for inconsistency isn’t all that bad. It may be our only way of growing and getting by with it! What really disturbs me is that we reject as full blood brothers men like the editor who wrote the above. This good man and thousands like him cannot enter our pulpits, speak at our lectureships, or teach in our schools because they are “there” where they have societies and conventions while we are “here” where we clandestinely have the same things, though maybe not as well structured and effective. The Lord may bear with us in the games we play with each other, but it is something else when we carry them so far as to reject those he has claimed as his own. Jesus may care little about the likes of Herald of Truth or the UCMS, but he may well declare a day of reckoning for those of us who use such things in drawing lines of fellowship on each other.

To Pat and Shirley with Love

We had the pleasure of meeting Pat Boone about a year ago. We feel that he is a wonderful Christian who is truly letting his light shine. Many in the brotherhood would hope that his light may dim because they do not understand him.—New York

I feel very sympathetic toward Pat Boone.—Louisiana (on leave from 41 years of work as missionary to Africa)

Please rush me a copy of Pat Boone’s book, A New Song. I can hardly wait. Let us pray that hypocrisy will be wiped out by the Spirit of Christ reigning within us.—New Mexico

Pat Boone has shown much strength during the years he has had some unjust criticism.—Texas

Please send us a copy of Pat Boone’s A New Song. We are interested in Pat’s experiences because reactions to our minister’s testimony to his “baptism in the Spirit” have shown that even people whom we thought were open and reasonable can only withdraw in fear when confronted with an outpouring of God’s power. They remind me of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor when he says in effect, “Jesus, we’ve just about got all of the impractical kinks out of your teachings, so don’t mess things up by your Presence.”—Michigan

Glad you are telling Pat Boone’s story so sympathetically. I am more or less with all those folk. God love you.—Alabama

Please send us Pat Boone’s new book. We have defended Pat several times in these parts, always in the spirit of love. Tell him that there are at least the two of us who are in the fellowship with him that have not met him-since his articles and TV appearances more than ever.—Virginia

8,000 Vacant Pulpits

An ad appears in our press from one of the schools of preaching to the effect that “There are about 8,000 vacant pulpits among Churches of Christ today.” Men are invited to accept the challenge of these empty pulpits, and thus prepare themselves for the task at said school of preaching, one in Louisiana.

While I can hardly accept such a figure as 8,000 for the number of our vacant pulpits, which would mean about one of every four, I suppose that is not the point. If there are but a thousand, the ad would still be appropriate, if indeed it is appropriate at all. It sounds so unlike a people who identify themselves with a Movement that seeks to restore the priesthood of every believer. The idea that one must come from outside the congregation, having been trained at a school of preaching, to satisfy the needs of that congregation is hardly scriptural, even if generally practiced.

The scriptures often praise that congregation that provides for its own edification, “able to teach one another.” If indeed we have so many vacant pulpits, or even a few for that matter, it would be more appropriate that they be urged to do their own teaching. If so many of our pulpits are unoccupied, the few enrolled in the preaching schools would hardly make much difference anyway. It is a chance for us to prove that we really believe in the ministry of every Christian. While all cannot be teachers or preachers, surely in every congregation there are those who can encourage the others unto good works.

The White Church of Christ

When I read your article sometime back about your work at Bishop College, I thought what depths of Christian love you have to do such work. You are to be commended. But I find the story about brother Keeble hard to believe. Having been spirited away from Texas at an early age, brother Keeble is little more than an apocryphal legend to me, but I know he existed and did much for the Lord. Could it really be true that in preaching to mixed audiences he offered separate invitations to blacks and whites? How absurd and pathetic. I realize we live in a much more enlightened age and someone has said that hindsight is 20/20, but I find that story hard to believe. I am sure it happened, but I cannot help but shake my head in baffled amazement. We have a long way to go to rectify the wrongs we have done to our Christian brothers whose skins happen to be a little browner than our own. I can only be thankful that the Lord has men like yourself who have made a commitment at great personal sacrifice to help resolve this wrong. I have resolved to shake myself out of my lethargy and take a more positive, active part in helping to destroy these artificial barriers which have separated us not only as brethren but as human beings.—University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Floyd Rose, a black brother who ministers to the Ridgewood congregation, 1818 Ridgewood Ave., Toledo, Ohio, traveled extensively with brother Marshall Keeble when but a lad. He is the one who described to me how brother Keeble used a rope to separate the whites from the blacks in his tent meetings. Young Floyd would urge the famed preacher to take down the rope “at least for the invitation,” but was always told that he didn’t understand.

The purpose of telling this story and others similar to it was not to discredit Marshall Keeble or in anyway to blame him. It was a way of illustrating how we are and always have been a white Church of Christ, just as our nation is white America. Racism is among our sins. Even those who are sure they have no prejudice will innocently declare that “I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry one of them.” That use of one of them is prejudicial and demeaning, however benevolently it is uttered. By the way, I never hear “I wouldn’t want my son to marry one of them.” Could this be because the white man has always assumed access to the black woman, while denying the black man access to the white woman? Did not Lincoln fear that doom would come upon a nation when its fathers sell their own sons on the auction block?

One social worker from “up North” was on a fact gathering tour through the South. In passing the time with the fellows in beer parlors, he would often ask if there were any white men in the area that had themselves some black mistresses. This always brought stories and laughter, tales about the old Joe’s in town that had a black gal to sleep with on the side. The visitor would then quietly ask if there were any black men in town that had a white girl.

The response was always electrifying. The laughter and the jokes not only ceased, but the man was summarily challenged for asking such a question, sometimes being physically attacked and at least once having to flee for his life.

The Report to the President on Social Disorders states that most white Americans are racists, that we have built two cultures, one white and one black, and that unless radical changes occur in our thinking and behavior our nation is destined to have racial conflict of serious proportion.

If we suppose that our white, southern, middle-American Church of Christ is any different from what is implied in the stories just related, we only deceive ourselves. And this is the heart of all sin: self-deception.

The only answer to all this, if indeed we choose to be Christians, is the one given above by the brother from Nebraska, who is changing his attitude and practices, and who is resolved to take an active role in “destroying these artificial barriers which have separated us not only as brethren but as human beings.”