OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

We regret that our brothers in Abilene have decided to cancel out the annual ACC Preachers’ Workshop, or what is tantamount to that. Held annually in early January while the students were away, hundreds of preachers could move onto the campus and into the dorms and have a merry time in an exchange of ideas. And it was attracting folk from several different backgrounds of our Movement. It was one of the most seminal and effective things ACC ever did. So successful in fact that they could not easily drop it entirely, so they propose to make it an added feature of the annual Lectureship. Perhaps it got a little too stormy, especially the last time around when Mission was put on trial. But all in all it was a very good thing, free and open. Like Campus Evangelism before it, we mourn. its passing while thankful for its short, vigorous life. Maybe our folk are not quite ready for such openness. The Christian Church ministers who were with me for the last Workshop were amazed at such candid exchange. “We just can’t do that!” they’d admit regretfully. To be sure, we’ll rejoice over any remnants of the freedom of the Workshop that will be carried over to the Lectureship. But with a new time, new emphasis, and new format, it will be lost amidst the Lectureship and will not and cannot be the same. Too bad. But it will hardly be a ripple in the great ocean of change that is sweeping across Churches of Christ-Christian Churches and in the believing world at large. The Spirit of God is demonstrating that he is pleased to use all of us, but, if need be, he can get along without any of us.

Editor Ed Hayden in the Christian Standard tells the sad story of a Japanese prophet, founder of a new sect, who plunged the traditional harakiri sword into his body before an altar when his prophecy of a large-scale earthquake failed. The editor also tells of a prophet within our own Movement, of the new Pentecostal persuasion, who predicted that Lincoln College in Illinois would be forced to close its doors in five years for rejecting his message, and this was by “divine revelation.” Those years have passed with the college stronger than ever. The good editor is calling for restraint along such lines, and he thinks it best if we find our “Thus saith the Lord” in the scriptures.

One lovely young lady of our acquaintance, christened a Roman Catholic, attends early Mass at her church, and then hurries over to a Church of Christ for Bible study, which says something for that class as well as for her.

A brother in the midwest is sending me details of a Christian Church of his acquaintance that has given up the organ. I told him about the Church of Christ in Mobeetie, Texas that had adopted the organ. We then questioned each other as to whether this means the Christian Church became a Church of Christ and the Church of Christ became a Christian Church. It is not all that easy to categorize these days. It is the party spirit that makes parties, nothing else.

A great gathering of “evangelicals” took place in July in Lausanne, Switzerland, called The International Congress on World Evangelization, the brainchild of Billy Graham. Some 3,700 persons were there from 150 countries. The 10-day congress sought ways to take the gospel to the entire world by 2000 A.D. It was the largest gathering on evangelism ever convened. Financial aid made possible a large representation from Third World countries. In Herbert Works’ firsthand report three marks of the congress are listed: (1) the commitment to biblically sound solutions to the challenges and the problems, (2) unity amidst extreme diversity—all the way from Pentecostals to High Church Anglicans, (3) widespread concern for church growth, with a stress on the responsibility of every member of the Body of Christ. They figure there are 2.7 billion yet un-evangelized. Some of our folk would have a much larger figure, including even those at the Lausanne congress!

Robert R. Taylor, Jr. reviewed the Woods-Franklin debate in the Gospel Advocate, the first installment of which someone sent to me, scribbling in the margin, “Did you note the careful avoidance of calling Ben a Brother? It is Brother Woods but Franklin.” True. Guy is referred to as brother 13 times, while Ben Franklin not once. Now, brother Taylor, is Ben not still your brother, however wild-eyed you may consider his pentecostal views? As for the report, it is hardly a classic in fairness, for brother Franklin makes all the mistakes and brother Woods none. I would probably disagree with both, but that is beside the point. Both men are my brothers, even when one of them abuses such passages as Micah 7:15 to prove that the miraculous period in the New Testament would be of similar duration to the wilderness wandering. Brother Woods ought to know better. But if something works in a debate. . .

Writing in Logos, R. A. Torrey III, reveals his attraction to the idea of restoring the church to the New Testament pattern” which he traces from Thomas and Alexander Campbell to Watchman Nee and Derek Prince. But he offers a sobering view: “The churches which have tried hardest to ‘return’ to the New Testament seem to be the most immune to revival.”

Editor Reuel Lemmons in a recent Firm Foundation wrote: “The world is still waiting for a crucified church. We have a people converted to doctrine, but we do not yet have a church converted to Christ. Too many ‘conversions’ have really been church-joining affairs. We are the church on the throne; not the church on the cross. This body has not been broken and its blood poured out in sacrifice; it has been split and torn by keepers of orthodoxy and flag wavers who shout sound doctrine.” The same editor said in his July 2 issue: “We honestly believe that the church is going to sit and watch our present preacher-organization situation continue to jell, and the church get into such a tight, straight-laced, organization-conscious sectarianism until it will take an open war in the brotherhood over it to ever get back again anywhere close to the Biblical arrangement. Most preachers will agree, but they are so congregationally bound and salary-conscious that they cannot, of themselves, make a move to correct it.” Thank God for sunshine and Lemmons!

Wes Reagan of the Burke Road Church of Christ in Houston always has something to say when he takes pen in hand. He recently listed the rules for improving one’s attitude toward the church. The first one is so arresting that there is little need for the other nine: “Tell yourself over and over that since you are not perfect, you would not fit into a perfect congregation if one existed.”

There have already been over a million copies of the New International Version of the New Testament sold. We can supply you with a copy for only 5.95. This summer 28 scholars worked at St. Andrews University in Scotland, toward issuing the Old Testament part of the new version. It will take several years yet.