OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

There is evidence that Churches of Christ in many places are becoming more sensitive to suffering humanity, despite all the bromides about “the social gospe1.” That we are changing in our attitude toward divorce and the divorced is a case in point. I know of at least three programs across the country that aim at ministering to the divorced, and two of them are directed by divorced preachers. Moreover, when I was in Searcy, Arkansas recently J. D. Bales of Harding College told me that he is changing the position he has held on divorce and remarriage, and he indicated that this has already brought some fire from the right. If the fire came from the right (and does it ever really come from the left?) it must have been at close range, for one doesn’t get very far to J. D.’s right! But I say bully for J. D. It is wise men who change their minds.

I was recently with the College Church of Christ in Conway, Arkansas. Sometime back they issued a neat folder entitled “A Search for Real Values” to be circulated in their community. I have filed one away for some future historian who will be looking at what happened to us in the 1970’s. But I’ll let you in on some it: “The College Church of Christ in Conway, Ark. is a fellowship of people who are seriously endeavoring to discover the secret of the early Christians. We do not believe that this can be done merely by aping their practices, for many of their ways of doing things are irrelevant to our own times. What we seek are the principles, the spirit, the deep seated conviction that moved them to the greatest heights of spiritual endeavor the world has ever seen. We do not claim to have fully discovered their secret, for this must come to each person as he grows into a personal relationship with God. Any given individual among us may never come to such a relationship in the fullest sense, but we invite him to try.” Another paragraph includes this: “We will not haggle with you over special and private interpretations of the Bible, nor require you to subscribe to a special set of beliefs called ‘Church of Christ doctrine.’ Any person who seeks to develop and deepen his commitment to Christ is welcome in our midst.”

This comes from still another Church of Christ: “Keep up your ministry. Our elders here read every line and eagerly wait each edition. We are looking for a young man, gifted with young people, upright and full of the Spirit. He need not be married. We thought you might know someone who is looking for a bit more freedom. Actually a lot more freedom, for our elders are gentle and open and the congregation is a happy, loving people.” We all like to hear of such churches. If any young worker among us is interested, send us your name and we’ll pass it on to the appropriate person.

Editor Reuel Lemmons recently wrote in the Firm Foundation, which also appeared in Jimmie Lovell’s Action, these encouraging words: “We feel that a brighter day is ahead. The folly of petty division is becoming more clearly evident. Brethren are getting tired of strife. We are beginning to realize that there is enough room for individual opinion without destroying the faith once delivered … There are many factious divisions in our history in which groups have chosen to go their separate ways. The tragedy is when they cease to think of each other as brethren and no longer treat each other as brethren. There are encouraging signs that a better climate is developing.” Brother Lemmons, in making such statements from time to time, does not make it clear whether instrumental music is a matter of “individual opinion” upon which we can differ without dividing. In this particular editorial he puts Sunday Schools in this class. He also refers to the Sommer movement as “almost completely absorbed back in the body.” It sounds like “the body” to Reuel is the mainline Church of Christ. I thought all our brethren, whether anti-Sunday School, pro-instrumental music, or anti-college. were in the Body. I should like for Reuel to tell us what one has to do to be “absorbed in the body” other than to be baptized into Christ, as all these brethren are. If he is urging us all not to be sectarian in the opinions we hold, then I would urge that it is as appropriate for us to cease rejecting our brothers over instrumental music as for the non-Sunday School folk to cease rejecting us because of the Sunday School. Can anyone of our factions claim to be “the body” and thus presume that all others are to be “absorbed” into our sect?

One reader prizes this journal to the extent that he thinks it should be required reading for all members of the Church of Christ. But at the same time I have word on good authority that one of our leading Schools of Preaching instructs its students before they go out that they are to beware of Carl Ketcherside and Leroy Garrett and that they are not to read anything that they write. While we may not be able to make this or any other journal required reading, we can all pray that our people may have open minds.

You will remember the travel letter in which I told of my visit with Herman and Thelma Sims in Royalton, Illinois. The latest word from Thelma is that Herman has gone home to glory after a siege of illness in the hospital. Herman remains in my heart as one of those unforgettable characters, a person in love with life, the Lord, the church, the scriptures, his wife, and his farm home. As I told you, after all these years he still slept in the bed in which he was born. Thelma writes that he wanted to live to see Halley’s comet, and that she assured him that in his Great Adventure he’d see far greater things than a little old comet prancing around in the heavens. He loved to write about the Bible. I have scores of pages on hand, neatly penned in ink. He was that painstaking just for one reader. His inquisitive mind played upon many subjects. I rejoice with him that he now knows what it is all about and no longer has to look through a glass darkly. He was a very uncommon man, my kind of a guy. I am pleased that he made his way into this journal and thus into our history.

There is not enough darkness in the whole world to put out the light of one wee candle.—Scottish proverb