AN OPEN LETTER TO A REJECTED MINISTER

So as to conceal identity for the time being I will not quote directly from the letter received from a young Texas minister, but will only explain the circumstance that motivated the following letter. The minister, engaged in work among young people rejected by society, has been required by his elders to denounce Pat Boone publicly, and to assert that he does not believe in the “miraculous” work of the Holy Spirit today, and that he believes that any such teaching is of the devil. Unable by his own conscience to make such a declaration, he has submitted his resignation. His support in now threatened, as well as his ministry to deprived youth. — the Editor

My dear young brother in the Lord:

I am of course terribly grieved about the events described in your most recent letter. I feel a deep compassion for your elders who have taken such drastic action, for it is they, not yourself, that is the real tragedy of this story. You will in some way be able to continue in your dedicated task, laboring for Jesus as a free man, while they will be confined to their little world that continues to shrivel, mistaking loyalty to dogma for loyalty to the Christ. I pity them for their bondage and my heart yearns for them to know the liberty that is in Christ Jesus.

When events like this occur, in which sincere brethren get caught in a whirlpool of conflicts, I ask myself why men behave the way they do. All those involved are of honest and good hearts. They love Jesus and want to do what is right and honorable. Your elders would nor want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and they are no doubt men who believe in justice and fair play. They want to follow the Bible in all they do. And yet here they are imposing themselves upon the conscience of a young brother in direct violation of the scriptural injunction for individual freedom. Moreover, in order to preserve the status quo they demand that one brother publicly denounce another brother. My reply to this is that of Paul’s: “And you, sir, why do you hold your brother in contempt? (Ro. 14:10 ) Yes, indeed, why is the big question.

Sometimes men are institutionally motivated. What one brother would never think of doing on his own, because of his own sense of decency, a group of men serving as an eldership or as administration will do, as if they lost their individual identity in the impersonal character of the institution they represent. Remember that it was devout people, church folk, that sent Jesus to the cross. But each one who shared in it might have behaved differently had it been only himself involved with Jesus. Your elders fell prey to the evil notion that man is made for the sabbath rather than the other way around, or that the church member is made for doctrine, and not doctrine for the member, if we put it in more modern terms. Just as it was religion that killed Jesus it was Church of Christism that rejected you.

The Jewish hierarchy had its system to protect, so it did not matter how much good our Lord was doing. They hounded him even when he was ministering to the afflicted, even when he was doing what they wouldn’t do. But he had to go since they saw him as a threat to that which they served as guardians. As free men in Christ your elders would have made the well being of souls their primary consideration, and so they would have measured well the work you are doing among the lost generation They would have also been sensitive to the feelings of Pat Boone, who is a brother for whom Christ died. They would have considered what this might do to you personally, whether it might discourage you and turn you back to the world and its allurements. And they would have thought of our youth and the effect that such action would have had upon them.

Yes, if they were free, they would have so behaved. Only free people can weigh alternatives. Only free people can give men and events time. It is the unfree that must hurry and do their thing. The trial of Jesus could not even wait till morning. It was Luther, one who had broken the bond of institutionalism, that could speak so wisely as Give men time!

“And you, sir, why do you pass judgement on your brother?” The answer to the apostle’s question may sometimes be that men are frightened. They fear the unfamiliar. They fear change. They fear what might happen, what might come next if they yield any ground at all. And fearful people are dangerous, whether it be a gun they wear or authority they bear. While it sounds ridiculous that anyone would be afraid of our dear brother Pat Boone, or of our dear comforter the Holy Spirit, that is about the size of it. Poor Pat. When the brethren kept him busy flying all over the country for youth rallies, fund-raising, and advertising campaigns for the Church of Christ, nobody was afraid of him. According to his own testimony he was at that time flirting with movie actresses at cocktail parties, fouling up his marriage, and sleeping through church with liquor on his breath. He says he was a hypocrite back then. And we might reasonably have fear of hypocrites and their influence. But Pat was always in his place on Sunday morning at the Church of Christ wherever he was, and he was doctrinally pure, having no brief for the Holy Spirit and all that stuff. So nobody was afraid of him. He was a good guy, a friend of our leading ministers and one who was on first-name basis with college presidents and professors.

Now he is written up in our press as an heretic, excommunicated by his brethren as fallen from grace, and even those, like yourself, who dare to turn a sympathetic ear in his direction, are compelled to renounce him publicly. Even if we treated dogs and cats the way we have treated Pat Boone it would be proper that we be reprimanded by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

And is it not sad that our folk are frightened of the Holy Spirit? So scared are they that he might do something “special” or “miraculous” in our age that they actually demand that a young minister get up publicly and assert that the Spirit certainly will not do anything of the sort!

I see yet a third reason why men do such things as your elders have done to you, besides fear and institutionalization, and that is ignorance. An explanation that also applies to the rejection of our Lord, as do the other two reasons. Recall Peter’s declaration in Acts 2:17 to those who had murdered Jesus: “I know quite well that you acted in ignorance.” It is one of the sins that crucified Christ. I say sin because it was surely a willful ignorance. We cannot always make that kind of judgement of our brethren’s ignorance, whether willful or unwillful, but it is certain that ignorance is a large part of the problem.

In the case of your elders it is an ignorance of both facts and personalities. Pat Boone shows no signs of wanting to lead the church into some weird apostasy, nor is he out to try to get everyone to speak in tongues. He makes it clear that it is the Giver that he wants to bear witness to, not any gift as such. The chances are that if your elders could have Pat in their homes over a weekend that they would be both impressed and edified by his newly-found spiritual life. They would be pleased with the influence he would have on their children, and they might even find themselves wanting his simple trusting faith, however “doctrinally pure” it may or may not be. This is to say that they do not know the man that they want you to publicly denounce. Surely Pat would pray, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

It is also an ignorance of the very Bible that they profess to respect. A careful reading of the verses that teach about the Holy Spirit would make them reluctant to make such sweeping judgements on those who have a vital and meaningful relationship with the heavenly Guest. The old Church of Christ fallacy (no one else believes such a thing!) that the Spirit operates only through the Word and that you have the Spirit to the extent that you know the Bible simply with not hold up in the light of what the Bible itself says about the work of the Spirit.

For instance, Ro. 8:14 says “All who are moved (or led) by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Are we to conclude that the Spirit’s work of moving or leading us is dependent upon how much Bible we know? Those to whom Paul was writing did not have what we call the Bible. They were led by the Spirit because the Spirit was in them! So he says in Ro. 8:9: “If a man does not possess the Spirit of Christ, he is no Christian.” The same chapter talks about the Spirit coming to the aid of our weakness, pleading for us before God, and elsewhere it is said that our very bodies become a shrine for his indwelling. Call that “miraculous” if you will.

I have said all this because of the discipline of understanding. To understand why men act the way they do goes far in solving the problem insofar as we are personally concerned. When men are moved by mass thinking (or unthinking), fear and ignorance, they need our pity more than our censure. Once we understand we can better love them and pray for them. As it is now they are the tragedy, they are the losers. And we don’t want them to be losers, but to become victors in Christ by becoming free men instead of party men.

The most impressive part of this story is that you took your stand for freedom, decency and integrity. You could not see yourself up denouncing Pat Boone, even if you did not agree with him in all his recent conclusions. You stood for the freedom of the conscience, the very principle that made the Restoration Movement a vital force in our culture. You could have rationalized and found a reason for “passing judgement on your brother” and thus kept your job. You would have had money, a mess of pottage; but now you have your integrity. Congratulations! I thank God for you. And you can be assured that the vast rank and file of our people would admire you for the stand you have taken. It is a victory that only free men can enjoy and that only they can understand. The party man may hate you, but for the same reason our Lord was hated. When you are the Lord’s and not the party’s it makes a big difference. And there is absolutely no question but what the Lord will bless you and lead you in the way that shines brighter than you could have ever imagined. He is able to do abundantly more than we can either ask or imagine. To trust in him is your victory. He has never let anybody down yet, and he will bear you up, believe me, as if on eagles’ wings. You need not fear what any man or party can do. They may fire you and try to starve you out. They may reject you. But the same Lord that fed Elijah with ravens will watch over you and preserve you.

“If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Whether therefore we live or die, we belong to the Lord” ( Ro. 14:8 ).

Those who “belong” to the party have the party to look to for their well being. Those who “belong” to the Lord have him to look to for their sustenance.

God bless you for taking your stand and making it clear to whom you belong. It is indeed your greatest hour, an hour that will take its flight into eternity itself.

And you are my folk, my Church of Christ folk. Your stand for Jesus rather than party is one more testimonial to the glorious fact that we are changing for the better. And one more reason why I’m not leaving!

--- Faithfully yours, Leroy Garrett