Pilgrimage of Joy . . .
MISSION
MESSENGER BEGINS
W. Carl
Ketcherside
I am sure we made a lot of mistakes in the work in Saint Louis. Many of these were the result of attitudes. I can see now that we were quite exclusivistic, the first symptom of the sectarian spirit. It is probable that we could not have done too much to promote unity of the brethren at the time because the climate was not right. Bridges must be built from both sides of the stream. Our approach to unity was quite simple. If everyone else gave up what they thought and joined in with us we would be together. There was no other way because we were the Lord's people. Our way was "the way that is right and cannot be wrong." We were no different in this respect than other factions in the area. All of us thought that our group was the one which heaven had established and all recognized the others as apostates and teachers of heresy.
There was a constant open season on proselytizing. We rejoiced when one from another group "learned the way of truth more perfectly" and took his stand with us on "the old Jerusalem gospel", as we liked to think of our puerile system of traditions and opinions. We were all agreed upon one thing, even if we could not agree upon anything else. Instrumental music had originated with the family of Cain, was perpetuated by Satan, and was the sign and seal of spiritual departure and degradation. The Christian Churches had sold themselves to sin and when one of their members came around us we "Mistered" him while we reluctantly "Brothered" all who opposed the instruments even if we had to do it with our fingers crossed because they were "brothers in error."
It is obvious now that we had little real consciousness of a vital personal relationship with the Lord. We were all affiliated with an institution whose chief men were skilled in legalistic nit-picking and who could "make out a case" for our procedural policy. Righteousness was not so much right standing with the Lord of glory, but standing right on the issues in which we gloried. We were very negative in our attitude toward the Holy Spirit and sought to confine him not so much to a compilation of printed pages, which would have been bad enough, but to our own understanding and interpretation, which was worse. This meant that if the Spirit did not work within the limits in which we worked and to which we assigned him, it was not the Holy Spirit at work at all, but Satan.
Not everything was bad, and we inaugurated some life-touching experiences. Perhaps the period from 1942 to 1947 constituted one of the busiest five years of my whole life. During that time the brethren started the third congregation. Taking about three dozen folk from Manchester Avenue who lived in the vicinity of Webster Groves, they planted them in a decrepit structure purchased from a defunct Pentecostal group. Emery Smith, who had moved to the city from Salem, Missouri, agreed to look after this group of humble people, and from the start they had "a mind to work." Brother Smith, who supported himself by hard manual toil at Missouri Bitumen Corporation, spent his spare time training, counselling and strengthening the saints. Because of their relative poverty the congregation at Manchester Avenue supplemented their contributions so they could meet their financial obligations.
Members of the other congregations went from work each evening to labor on the building. The sisters brought the evening meal and served it and there was a thirty minute prayer and praise service every evening while eating the "love snack", after which all returned to the task to continue until midnight. We grew as a spiritual temple even as the material building became more habitable. On December 18, 1946, the brethren at Manchester Avenue met to discuss the planting of the fourth congregation, and to pray for God to open up an effectual door for the fulfillment of their plans. It is interesting to recall that I was not even in the city when any of the congregations were started. All of them were started by the elders who told me about it when I returned from work elsewhere.
I developed a series of tracts to use in sowing the seed. We took advantage of the latest printing techniques, employing modern typefaces and illustrative material. We used these in "saturation bombing", marking out areas of the city in which we covered every house. Brethren carried a supply with them, distributing them at work, passing them out on streetcars and buses, putting them in letters to friends and using them wherever
opportunity was presented. At Manchester Avenue a tract rack was erected close to the sidewalk and kept supplied. Other congregations in distant states learned about them and asked to purchase them, so that we began printing them in lots of 50,000 at a time. Even to this day, in out-of-the-way places I still run into stray copies of "This Way and That Way", "Daughters of the Horseleach", and "Human Ostriches." They are yellowed and faded now!
In 1943 we started a thirty minute radio program called "The Church of Christ Hour." It was aired on Sunday afternoons. Three singing groups alternated, and when I was out of the city, Hershel Ottwell directed the program and presented my talks from the script I had prepared. Hershel and I had known each other from boyhood in Pike County, Illinois. He was younger than I, but had been present when I presented my first talk at Old Pearl, where his family also attended. He was a great fellow-workman and did an excellent job on the radio. One cannot afford to make too many errors in a live presentation. I do not recall Hershel making any. The program averaged a pulling power of 400 letters per month. The greatest return for a single speech was 468 pieces of mail.
The manager wrote to inform us that the program was by far the most popular on the station. We never mentioned money and never asked for a contribution, but we received enough voluntary gifts to pay the entire cost some weeks. For a number of years after we closed the broadcasts I found individuals at various functions where I was the speaker who told me, "I used to listen to you on the radio every Sunday." At the end of each quarter my radio talks for the thirteen weeks were printed in book form. Some of the titles of these little volumes are indicative of their content, such as "The Bible versus False Theories", "Proven Proverbs", "Storm Clouds Over America," "The Sermon on the Mount", "Happy Homes", "Actions in Acts", and others like them.
It was late in 1945 I got into the publishing business in a very minor way. I brought out a rather large cloth-bound volume under the title Neu. Testament Questions, by E. M. Zerr. I followed this with a compilation of some of the writings of W. G. Roberts which we called Lessons From Yesterday. In 1946 we began to plan publication of Bible Commentary by E. M. Zerr. It required a great deal of time, effort and money. Before it was completed it covered six volumes which cost a total of almost $35,000. At the outset it became apparent that Brother Zerr was not trained to write this type of material, in spite of his comprehensive knowledge of the Bible. Cleona Harvey, who was secretary to the dean of the Indiana State School of Dentistry, agreed to read and edit the entire manuscript. The arrangement did not suit Brother Zerr very well since he did not appreciate another telling him how to say what he wanted to say. But when I pointed out to him a whole lot of typographical and other errors in the first volume on which he had insisted correcting the proofs, and told him that I would not publish any further volumes without editing, he reluctantly consented.
A lot of the material was written in our home. Brother Zerr refused to work more than four hours daily on the writing. He arose before 4:00 a.m. and downed a couple of mugs of strong coffee and started promptly on the hour. When 8:00 a.m. arrived he stopped writing, even if he was in the middle of a sheet of paper. He composed at the typewriter and produced almost flawless copy insofar as margins and the number of lines were concerned. He worked six days per week and stayed with the stupendous task until he became the only man in the restoration movement to produce a commentary on the entire word of God. We brought out 3000 sets of six volumes each, which means that we sold 18,000 volumes. I coined the publicity phrase, "the commentary for the common man", after hearing Brother Zerr tell repeatedly how his cousin, Noah Smith, at Sullivan, Illinois, had said, "Now Eddie, if you do write a commentary don't wade in too deep and get over our heads. Just write it for folks like me and act as if we don't know nothin'."
Perhaps one of the most significant things I did in Saint Louis was to begin publication of a little monthly journal called Missouri Mission Messenger. It was originally intended to be a chronicle of activities and news events of our party in the state. By keeping all of the congregations informed as to what was transpiring it was hoped we might be encouraged to greater activity and service to the Master. Gradually subscriptions began to come in from other states and eventually it seemed appropriate to drop the word "Missouri" and simply call it Mission Messenger. It was no longer a provincial publication.
At the time of its inception we had no idea that the paper would ever be sent to more than 8,000 readers, upon every continent of the globe, each month. It was only after I became convinced that what we termed "the Church of Christ" was not identical with the one body for which Jesus died, but had been fashioned into a party growing out of a historical attempt to restore the primitive order, the paper really began to be read more widely. The first article on fellowship was printed in 1957 and brought both public and private attacks from preaching brethren with whom I had labored. After the initial hue and cry, which I sought to answer in a spirit of loving concern, the paper reached out beyond our narrow and circumscribed factional limits. It was almost as if my own spiritual encounter had been timed for supplying a deep need of those who were growing tired of the party spirit with its wrangling and strife, its bitterness and hostility. But more about that later?
As mid-1946 approached, plans for my trip to Great Britain had progressed to the point that a date for going and an itinerary abroad had been worked out. Nell and I would leave Saint Louis on Tuesday, February 18, after I had finished the six-weeks annual Bible Study. It was a busy time of preparation, but then something occurred to make it busier. In late September I was visited by a large delegation of preachers from the other "Churches of Christ" in the area demanding that we debate the Bible College issue "once and for all." They were inviting Dr. G. C. Brewer of Memphis to represent their position and asked if I was afraid to meet him. I was not, and it turned out we had two debates within three weeks of each other, one in Saint Louis, the other at Freed-Hardeman College during their lectureship.
Brother Brewer submitted his affirmation which read: "The organization of schools and colleges as David Lipscomb College (Nashville, Tennessee) for the purpose of teaching the Bible and other subjects in connection, is in harmony with God's Word, and therefore scriptural." I signed it without a quibble. The debate was held in the auditorium of the Saint Louis House, the nights of December 16, 17, 18, 19. More than 600 persons attended each session. W. L. Totty moderated for Brother Brewer, E. M. Zerr for me. Presiding over all sessions was the Honorable William R. Schneider, a nationally known jurist, author of the Workmen's Compensation Law, and formerly a candidate for governor of Missouri.
It was evident our opposing brethren had made a good choice in Brother Brewer. He was distinguished in appearance, an orator of note, and a man of culture. He was a member of the faculty of Harding College and had been given his honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the school. Many brethren sympathetic with his views flocked into Saint Louis, among them being Eugene S. Smith, publisher of Gospel Broadcast; Dr. George S. Benson, president of Harding College; A. B. Barrett, president of Florida Christian College; Frank L. Cox, of Firm Foundation; Edward J. Craddock, of Chicago; G. A. Dunn, Sr., of Dallas, Texas; and L. C. Sears, dean of Harding College.
Brother Brewer was so pleased with the conduct manifested in the debate, he suggested that the two of us hold a series of "Lincoln-Douglas" type debates in all of the college auditoriums. He further suggested that we begin at Freed-Hardeman, and Dean Sears invited us to hold the second at Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas. The Freed-Hardeman debate was held before an overflow crowd on January 7. We discarded the use of moderators since both of us knew we could act as gentlemen. W. L. Totty acted as time-keeper for Brother Brewer, Fred Killebrew served in the same capacity for me.
I took the position that the apostles planted a school for teaching the Bible in every city where they labored, and that Jesus Christ was the president; the apostles and evangelists were the recruiting and field agents to secure students for the institution; the elders and others under them constituted the faculty; every disciple was an enrolled student, with the only textbook being the Word of God. I asked him to find the place where any of the apostles ever created the kind of organization he was defending.
It was a great day and the two sessions were conducted in good order with great response. At the close, N. B. Hardeman arose and said that since I had now taught in Freed-Hardeman I might like a job on the faculty. I replied that if what I had taught was true he would have to close down the school, and if it were not true, he had endorsed a false teacher and invited him to become a part of the staff.