OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

The non-class Churches of Christ, so long considered impervious to change, are becoming increasingly involved in missions. Scores of their churches and individuals are supporting a substantial effort in Malawi, Africa, where they have a school and hospital as well as churches. Roland Hayes of Houston tells of a recent visit to Malawi where he worked with B. Shelburne and Jack Hutton and their families, permanent missionaries there. He writes of a 3,000 mile trip through the country in visiting with brethren from at least 225 congregations. He is impressed with the leadership that is emerging among the Africans themselves.

In his book Psychopaths, Alan Harrington describes the psychopath as one who is basically without conscience, one with no self-doubts, possessing a driving energy and having no idea of guilt. He is often one who inspires confidence and personal devotion, and sometimes people remain in his spell even when they know better. He believes only in self-gratification, and he feels neither shame nor anxiety in hurting others. He really cares for no one but himself and does not worry whether he is good or bad. The psychopaths life is what Harrington calls “controlled madness, and he concludes that the illness stems from a lack of love in childhood. And psychopaths are increasing at an alarming pace, due in part to the brokenness of the typical modern family. But, interestingly enough, Harrington lays a lot of the blame at the feet of organized religion, for “traditional religious structures have not provided the sense of death and rebirth necessary to bring about change in our lives.” Religion at its roots must deal with conscience and consciousness, and it is the disappearance of conscience in our time that serves as the greatest challenge to organized religion.

In his book on Pentecostals, WaIter Hollenweger defines a sect as “a person belongs to a sect if he has excluded himself from the fellowship of the saints, that is, if he asserts that in his own ecclesiastical organization, in his own theology, and in his own experience of faith, God’s will is infallibly incarnate.” He would almost certainly define a denomination in other terms.

Two leading journals among our “conservative” Churches of Christ are as much at war as the nations of the Middle East. The heart of the problem is the loss of many of their younger and brighter ministers to “liberalism,” to the views of Carl Ketcherside in particular. One of the editors of the Gospel Guardian is being blamed, and is being taken apart, limb by limb, in the pages of Truth Magazine. One young brother who has not yet gone off the deep end is trying to save the Guardian editor, so he called on his brother and asked him the crucial question of eternity: Is instrumental music a sin? The answer: No. All the forces of our far right wing, which appears to be dwindling, are being brought to bear to save the brother from such monumental error. But the erring brother seems to be having trouble in seeing the question as all that important. He even talks about ugly partyism as being worse. Of all things!

A report on a Church of Christ preachers meeting in Ft. Worth reveals that a spirited discussion took place among the 35 or 40 present on the current political situation, including Watergate. While the majority seemed to have been pro-Nixon, it was evident that there is as much diversity in political thinking as in theological among our ministers. But what impressed one observer were the remarks of a missionary back home after a long haul in Africa. He pointed out that where he had been, as well as in many parts of the world, such a discussion of politics as they were having simply could not take place without those involved being arrested. He suggested that we are much better off than we seem to realize, otherwise wewould not be at liberty to criticize so openly the leaders of our nation.

The National Catholic Reporter says that the precipitous decline in church attendance among Roman Catholics has reached “almost catastrophic proportions,” and it sees a connection between such decline and confidence in church leaders. The changes just this past year constitute “the most dramatic collapse of religious devotion in the entire history of Christianity.” In 1972, 61% attended church “weekly or almost weekly,” but this dropped to 48% this year. Last year only 8% attended less than once a year, but this percentage nearly doubled this year. The same report, taken by the General Social Service Survey, reveals that 36% of Protestants attend weekly, down 2% from a year ago. Among Jews only 7% go weekly while 33% hardly ever go at all, not even once a year. Even more distressing, says the report, is that the Roman Catholic decline is not just among the young, but the older as well, Even if the decline now levels off, which is hoped for, “the church will emerge from its present crisis only a shadow of its former self.”

Jesus is the supreme Head of the church, which is His body, filled with Himself, the Author and Giver of everything everywhere. —Eph. 1:22-23