Notes from a Travel Diary. . .

MEETING WITH CHURCH OF CHRIST EDITORS

I have long contended that all the editors among the Churches of Christ would do well to get together, preferably on an annual basis. I once persuaded one of our enterprising publishers to put together such a meeting, but he has not yet had time to do it. So I was pleased to learn that the International Evangelism and Bible Conference, conducted by the White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ, Monroe, La., began such a meeting for our editors last year. Eleven were present at the first gathering last year, and I was thankful to be among the fourteen that assembled this fall.

White’s Ferry Road is the congregation that sponsors one of our better known schools of preaching, which presently enrolls more than 100 students. It also has one of our farflung radio evangelistic programs, known as World Radio. So the place is a beehive of activity since most of this takes place right there on the premises. As with all the schools of preaching, White’s Ferry Road is “somewhat to the right of center,” even in Church of Christ ranks, and for this reason it may be difficult for it to gather editors together with much diversity without it being awkward. Of the fourteen who gathered this time I was about the only one who could be labeled “toward the left,” and there was hardly more than one or two that I would class as “sort of middle of the road.”

My experience there indicates that they might not feel comfortable with the annual presence of editors of such publications as Integrity, Mission, Mission Messenger, or even Restoration Quarterly. And, interestingly enough, those editors of “far right” publications among us, such as The Preceptor, Truth Magazine, the new Vanguard, and Gospel Guardian (though not so far right recently) get along much better at Abilene or Pepperdine than they would at White’s Ferry Road or at Sunset in Lubbock, but that isn’t to say that they get along very well anywhere! And I am persuaded that the more “middle of the road” persuasions among us, such as emanate from the Christian colleges and such papers as Action, Firm Foundation and 20th Century Christian barely tolerate the attitude and mentality of the schools of preaching. It’s a long way from Abilene to Monroe, and I am referring to more than 600 miles! Not that far to Nashville, I’ll admit!

For these reasons an open and free gathering of editors of substantial diversity and number would have a better chance of surviving on an annual basis in the hands of some of our leadership in Austin or Abilene or Malibu. But this is to take nothing from the vision of the White’s Ferry Road in planning such a gathering, and I only regret that there was not a greater response. They are to be commended, and I think Hal Frazier, editor of World Radio News and associated with the Monroe program, did a great job in setting up the editors’ meeting.

We editors had one session to ourselves, with Hal presiding, in which we discussed such common problems of circulation and costs. In a private dinner meeting we listened to a paper by Reuel Lemmons, which I thought to be unusually poignant and appropriate. Reuel impresses me as being altogether worthy of the mantel of leadership that has draped about him all these years. I am especially impressed that he is able to say much of what others of us say and get by with it better than we do. “I am concerned about all the sectarianism in the Churches of Christ,” is taken as an attack on the church if it appears in Mission or Mission Messenger, but old Reuel, bless his heart, can say things like that, and much more, and get by with it, even at Monroe. More power to him!

And I like what he said to our small group of editors (I would that all could hear it): “I want to be as liberal as the law allows and as legalistic as grace allows.” And he told us of the distinct advantages of disagreements. “No disagreements, no discussion, for there is nothing to discuss.” And again: “Disagreements are wholesome, while dis-fellowship is deplorable.” And he surely did talk like the liberal he wants to be, !as the law allows, when he said: “Some don’t know the difference between disagreement and disfellowship,” and he went on to insist that we can differ without splitting. He went on and on like that, such as: “If you don’t think for yourself, someone else ‘will think for you.” And he talked about original ideas, granting that there is no pain like the burden of thinking for one’s self against the crowd.

I was gratified to be with fellow editors with whom I have had little or no previous contact. Experiences like that will cause us to come to understand and appreciate each other better, as well as to cultivate mutual love, which will surely find expression in our journals. So long as they are “there” and we are “here,” it is easier for us to be at war with each other. We have too much in common to allow that to be the case.

Some publication ventures among us are most impressive. Alvin Jennings, editor of The Star, which is a mass mailing, home evangelism kind of paper, sometimes ranges as high as a half million circulation. The Thurman brothers (only Clem was at the meeting) in Ft. Worth send out 82,000 Gospel Minutes every week, most of them going to individuals. Noble Patterson sends out 24,000 of the Christian Journal, and Clayton Pepper mails out 14,000 copies of the Evangelism Magazine. There were also representatives from the Christian Observer, Herald of Truth International, Christian Bible Teacher, Voice of Freedom.

They arranged for each of us to tell about our respective journals, explaining its purpose, to the larger gathering at the lectureship, including the 100 or so students of the school of preaching. In my remarks I admitted at the outset that I have a lover’s quarrel with the churches of the Restoration Movement, and that my paper is the arena for that quarrel. I want all our people, I explained, to be freer, more open, better educated, more spiritual, more catholic, more worldly involved, less sectarian, and more responsible. I said a word about my unity forums and mini-meetings, observing that Restoration Review is both a promoter and a reporter of such efforts. I also pointed out that my journal is concerned with “restoring the Restoration,” and because of this gives considerable attention to our own disciple history, to our pioneers and the ideas they stood for. I noted that I had special interest in recovering for our people the inductive approach to scripture that the Campbells gained for us in the early 1800’s, which calls for an examination of our own isms. An inductive approach to the Bible calls for our reaching no conclusions except those fully warranted by what is clearly set forth.

This made my journal somewhat different from what the preacher students were used to, so they filed by rather liberally, requesting samples of the publication. And I must say that I am favorably impressed with the calibre of some of the students at White’s Ferry Road. They are willing both to share and to think, and of course they love Jesus like I do, so we had a great time together, several of them and I. They conceded that they had not yet met such a Church of Christ animal as I, and one of them remarked, “You’re not just a little different, but a lot different.” And they were by no means buying all I was saying, which was OK with me. I don’t ask people to accept my views, but only to consider them.

I left there thinking about the young brother’s statement, “You’re a lot different,” and I suppose that has to be conceded. The longer I stayed at White’s Ferry Road, especially in what I saw and heard from the teachers of the school of preaching, I am tempted to call it an almost completely different religion from my own, which would not be a gross exaggeration. One of the teachers was explaining the justice of God, and deduced that to be just He must honor His own law; and so he went on to outline the plan of salvation as he understands it, declaring, “Even God can’t save a man who doesn’t obey it.” It came through loud and clear, especially loud, that even the God of heaven is powerless to save anyone who doesn’t belong to “the Church of Christ.” God has laid down the law of baptism, and even if He wanted to make an exception, He is powerless to do so. That’s because He’s a just God!

I pointed out to some of the fellows that the brother serves a different God than I. As judge, the God of heaven can pardon whom He pleases and have mercy on whom He pleases, and in Rom. 9 Paul shows some impatience with those that can’t get that into their noggins. If Congress cannot deny the President of the United States the power of pardon, even when it is unpopular, a teacher of a school of preaching is not likely to be able to inveigh upon the pardoning power of the Judge of the universe. The brother is actually stripping the God of heaven of his judgeship, I pointed out. As Judge of us all, He can offer clemency to whomever He pleases. We may not be able to dictate that, but God can, and it may not sound quite right for us to rise up in protest and complain: “Now wait a minute, Lord, you can’t save Luther and Zwingli and Calvin, for they weren’t immersed ‘for the remission of sins’ into the Church of Christ.” The righteous Judge just might have some surprises awaiting the faculty of the schools of preaching among us!

Oh, yes, the list goes beyond the likes of Luther, for Thomas and Alexander Campbell would both be left out, for it was years after they were immersed that they understood the intent of “for the remission of sins.” Also Raccoon John Smith, Jacob Creath, John T. Johnson, and virtually all our pioneers who “got in” on their “Baptist baptism,” if there is such a thing. It would even include uncle David Lipscomb among the lost, for he insisted that one is immersed aright if he is a believer, even if he doesn’t realize it is for the remission of sins and supposes himself to be saved already, and he adamantly opposed re-immersing Baptists. That is heresy of the first water at White’s Ferry Road.

As for the idea that God is bound to His own law, and too bad for Him if He happens to want to make an exception, 1 Cor. 15:27 clearly says: “For God has put all things under his feet. (Now when the scripture says that all things have been put under his feet, it is plain that he who put all things under his feet is not himself included among them.)” So, contrary to the Monroe Doctrine, God exempts Himself from all the terms enunciated through Christ and the apostles. In judgment He can do as He pleases, and if He chooses to save Martin Luther and Elton Trueblood, it is His business. Thank God they’ll be judged by the heavenly Father rather than by our brethren! With some of our brethren in charge, there’ll be no shortage of room in heaven, that’s for sure! (And I might add that when I return from some of these trips and tell it all to Ouida, she says, “It is just as well that your brethren are not to be your judge!”

I also sat in on a mock drill for door-to-door evangelism. The man to be “converted” described himself as a Baptist, but an immersed believer who had “enthroned Jesus as Lord in my heart.” I later told some of the fellows that in that case there was no evangelism to do, for the man was already in Christ, that I would express my pleasure in meeting a new brother, and I would wish him well in helping bring his Baptist friends closer to Jesus and to the scriptures.

But in Monroe they wind their Church of Christism tight. The whole point of the demonstration was to show how to dissatisfy this man with his experience, and to get him baptized “for the remission of sins” and away from the Baptists into “the Church of Christ.” I left the room grieved that I had seen a demonstration of sectarian indoctrination, not gospel evangelism. It was designed to bring a man to a party, not to a simple trusting faith in Jesus, which the “convert” already had. We are to evangelize the unbaptized, those who have not believed in and obeyed Christ. It was a shameful demonstration of how we have departed from our noble Restoration history into partyism. It de christianizes not only most of the immersed believers in the Christian world, both living and dead, but inveighs upon the heroes of our own Movement, who themselves were not true believers according to this ghastly ism at Monroe—and elsewhere.

So, yes, my religion is fundamentally different from that. But still these men are my brothers and I love them, and I would rejoice to see them turn to the catholic faith of the scriptures and to align themselves with the great heritage we have in the Restoration Movement.

Another Instance of Public Censure

The morning of the day I left, the presiding brother, who is on the faculty of the school and minister to the congregation, and whose lovely and intelligent daughter shared in our discussions the previous evening, felt that he should duly expose me before introducing the speaker. All that he said was not clear to me, but I took it that he objected to my saying that “love is all there is,” or something like that (I don’t say exactly that), and he suggested that I was one of those going about trying to reform others rather than taking care of my own business. But once he called my name I listened more carefully! “He is not a man of peace,” he assured them, “and his fruits are not good.” He was not telling the fellows not to listen to me, but to beware. “As long as you know what you’re getting into …” or some such words. But he did say that I was welcome and that he did not want me treated disrespectfully, which I appreciated. The brother is a good man, knowledgeable and sincere, and I don’t think he intended to be rude—or not peaceful! It shows how good men will allow themselves to behave at the slightest threat to their system.

When one makes a public judgment of this sort he is running some serious risks, the main one being the possibility of falsely accusing a brother. I do not blame anyone for harboring private doubts about a person on the basis of hearsay. But to attack a man in public one should be certain of his ground, and even then one should be slow to accuse in a situation where the accused has no way of responding. If one felt it necessary to attack me in a public gathering of our people, I would expect him to be well acquainted with my writings, and to have a firsthand knowledge of such efforts as my unity forums, mini-meetings in homes, and lectures before churches. A responsible person would surely not make a public attack on a brother on the ground of hearsay evidence. But I have found through the years that those who are most vicious in their denunciations of my work are those who do not themselves read what I have to say or attend my unity meetings. Our brother in Monroe will have to judge himself in this regard, for I do not know how carefully he has examined my plea.

Another risk that one takes in doing this sort of thing is that he might miss, and cause others to miss, some precious truth, however minor. I think of old John Stuart Mill in this regard, and I do wish I could get my brethren to read his Essay on Liberty. Mill points out that we have to claim infallibility if we presume to have no further truth to learn. If we have more to learn, the person we suppose to be wrong just might have some of that truth. Even if the person is in error, he is not likely to be completely in error, so we should hear whatever truth he has, rejecting the error. Even if he be completely wrong, still we should hear him, Mill says, for this is not only necessary to a free society but it serves to diminish the error and elevate truth.

The brother in question was asked by his own students to have a meeting with me and them, for they wanted to explore some of the points raised with the two of us, which impressed me as a reasonable educational device as old as Socrates and Jesus. He refused to do this, which of course was his right. Whether he then had the right to go before a public audience and attack me, warning people to be on their guard in my presence, is another question. I would commend Paul’s principle to us all, “We have wronged no one, ruined no one, taken advantage of no one” (2 Cor. 7:2).

Some of the students asked me if their teacher’s charges were true. “Do you cause trouble in the church? Are you not a man of peace?” How does one answer questions like that? What am I suppose to do, stand up and cry out, “Hear ye, hear ye, I am a man of peace!”? I admitted that his charges might well be true, depending on how you look at it.

Reuel Lemmons had said to the same audience only the day before, “I am concerned about all the sectarianism in the Churches of Christ.” Is that a peaceful statement? Might that cause trouble? Even our Lord said, “I have come not to bring peace, but a sword,” and Paul had to urge upon his own brethren that they should not consider him an enemy because he tells them the truth (Gal. 4:16).

I took my 15-year old Ben with me on this trip, even if he did have to miss a day of school. I want him to learn to “love the brotherhood” through broad contacts. Besides, he delights in driving our Firebird, and I let him drive all the way there and back. He is still a little boy with a toy, even sometimes turning on his own motor, making noises with his mouth, in order to help the car up a hill or around a corner!

But he was somewhat bewildered as to why “they” should make such a big deal out of his Daddy being present at such a gathering, even to the point of giving him a special commercial. I explained that at any time in history when men try to change things in the cultures and institutions to which they belong, they have to learn to take it. Whether Galileo or Luther or Savonarola or Campbell or Ketcherside (the latter being one of Ben’s favorites)—if he really tries to reform and not just halfheartedly—he’s going to have to take abuse from those who don’t want things changed.

“You mean it’s like if you can’t take the heat, you’d better get out of the kitchen?” he asked. “You’ve got it, son, you’ve got it,” I had to concede.

Then he told me another part of the Monroe story. One of the speakers on the program, discovering who he was, said to him, “Your father has been a great help to me, causing me to understand a lot of things better. He is really doing something important for the Church of Christ.”

So we drove along toward Denton, with both Ben and the Firebird purring, and both of us realizing that even in Monroe, Louisiana there are at least two ways of looking at something.—the Editor