Travel Letter . . .

SUNDRY JOURNEYS

This year should not close without my writing more about my travels during 1979, for this feature has proved to be among our more popular offerings, one reason being that our readers like to know what is going on. Equally in demand, if not more so, is that I keep saying things about Ouida. These two features illustrate the novelty of this publication, it being an endeavor in personal journalism, and we make no effort that it be anything else. Since Ouida was with me in some of these journeys, this will be one essay with a twofold purpose.

Ouida goes with me on my occasional visits to Grand Ave. Chapel in Cleburne, Texas, which is one of the more historic Church of Christ towns. In his History of the Churches of Christ in Texas Steve Eckstein tells how a soldier who fought under Gen. Andrew Jackson at New Orleans moved to Cleburne in 1870 and preached the gospel, but a congregation was not formed until 1890. By 1950 it had 1,000 members, ministered to through the years by the likes of G. A. Dunn and Reuel Lemmons. It was here that T. W. Caskey had some of his great debates, the Cleburne paper describing him as “awkward and uncouth in manner, but as one who like a surgeon picks and lays bare to the eye the muscles and veins and sinews and ligaments of the dissecting room.” One of his debates in Cleburne was with a Methodist minister, W. M. Price, who was called “the Campbellite killer of Texas.” That reputation was gained, of course, before he met T. W. Caskey, who stood six feet four and who had never shed a tear since his mother whipped him (and some who knew him doubted if he did then!).

Cleburne even had a Church of Christ college, called Clebarro, started by two men, A. B. Barrett and C. H. Roberson, who later helped in founding Abilene Christian. It went defunct in 1916, one of a dozen colleges started by our folk in Texas that are now listed as “dead” colleges. The Firm Foundation recently published a study on Church of Christ colleges, listing 42, and noting that only 17 of them have survived. I noted with interest that of the 25 “dead” colleges ten of them were in Texas, and there were at least two others that the researchers did not turn up, lowly Littlefield College, that lasted but two years, and Texas Christian College in Terrell, which closed after only one year.

So, if you write our history in Texas there is no way to ignore Cleburne, but the Grand Ave. Chapel, while a Church of Christ or at least a church of Christ, is hardly aware of all this. They are too busy making history. They may be the first of our churches in this state to sponsor a “boat people” family from Vietnam. Their facility, which is a residence with a large assembly room up front, allows room for such a family, whom they suppose to be Buddhists, though due to the language barrier they do not yet know much about them. But I watched with delight as the one universal language, love, conveyed its message that Sunday morn, for they greeted each other in joyful embraces, as if there is no East or West after all.

They have learned that the boat family were rather well to do in their homeland, even to having servants, but they sacrificed all this for freedom, fleeing only with the clothes on their backs. The brethren are impressed with their gratitude and lowliness. Both parents have taken jobs as janitors, and all who know them marvel at their industry. School teachers especially note that their little boy is always at school well ahead of the others, and he can hardly wait for the show to start so that he can learn.

A visit to the chapel will convince one that “the church in thy house” has a lot going for it, and that it is the unity and fellowship of such assemblies that we must recover in our time. Stymied as we are by our cumbersome architecture, which is hardly conducive to “the great lost secret of the primitive faith,” as one writer describes it, we must find ways to deal with each other’s needs and relate to one another as sisters and brothers in a family as they do in this little Cleburne assembly. They sit in a circle and really do Body ministry.

In their classes before the assembly Ouida taught the ladies (by pre-arrangement) and I took the men. I taught the parable of the Good Samaritan, observing that we have not been fair to the lesson it teaches, for I see Jesus (in not answering the lawyer’s question, Who is my neighbor?) showing us, not who our neighbor is, but who is a neighbor to us, the one who shows mercy. I used the boat family as an example. The parable doesn’t teach that the boat family is their neighbor, but that they prove (the word Jesus used) by their mercy that they are the boat people’s neighbor! The lawyer had to admit that the very ones he would have expected to be neighborly, the Jewish hierarchy, were not, and that a despised Samaritan was. I told them that through the years I’ve often had “sectarians” to be my neighbors while my brethren have “passed by on the other side.” So I see Jesus telling us what it means to be a neighbor rather than identifying our neighbor. “Go thou and do likewise,” he said to the lawyer. It is a commentary on the Golden Rule.

Ouida was also with me on my several visits during the year to the Hilltop Church of Christ in Burleson, Texas, also within easy driving distance of our home. It too is one of our renewal churches, having left an old, traditional church about as peacefully as a group can, and they have succeeded in avoiding a continuing warfare, one reason being that they moved to the outer edge of the city where another congregation is needed anyway. They have erected a delightful little building, which one would suppose was designed as a marriage chapel. They have the usual traits of our “walkout” churches: a happy, family-like fellowship that is concerned for human needs, and, having been burned by “the minister system,” are content to carry on their own work. But they invite folk like me occasionally, Roy Osborne and Wes Reagan being among their other recent guests. They listen appreciatively, but they have a beautiful way of thinking for themselves. And they like for you to talk about Jesus, which shows that our people really are changing!

For several years now I have conducted studies at the Southside Christian Church in Houston, a Disciples of Christ church that is ministered to by my old friend, Charles Turner, who is also an attorney. Charles is of Church of Christ background, having been fired at one of our colleges for his “charismatic” leanings, even though he kept his views rather quiet and only did legal work for the institution. To hear his story, and he is not one to exaggerate, is to be reminded of how far short of the Christian graces our leaders sometimes fall. In fact some of these colleges, who receive handsome government grants, run the risk of making a religious test, which would jeopardize those grants. In one such case, when a lad was not going to be allowed to graduate because of some “charismatic” activities, the father had to bring in his lawyer, who reminded the college of certain regulations of institutions receiving federal grants as well as the son’s civil rights, before his expulsion was rescinded. Perhaps it is fear that causes such behavior in men whose conduct is usually just.

But it doesn’t matter to Southside Christian whether Charles Turner was fired by one of our colleges. They love him because he projects the word of God in the pulpit and in his personal life, and I love them because they want me to come in and teach the scriptures and lift up the Christ.

Last March I was in Roswell, N. M. with still another free Church of Christ. I am always impressed that these new churches are made up of young, intelligent, prosperous, spiritual people, who must represent the best of the churches they leave. Our folk have long had a proclivity for skimming off the cream by turning away in one manner or another our most promising people.

I would like to write in detail of my visit to the Christian Campus Fellowship in Charleston, Illinois, directed by longtime friend Bob Ross on campus of Eastern Illinois State University. The thing that impressed me most was the responsible manner in which they were responding to the cultish practices of the nearby Heritage Chapel Church of Christ, which had been taken over by the indoctrination program out of Gainesville, Florida, which has since come under lots of fire. It was actually an harassment program under the guise of evangelism, and it was causing students to leave college rather than to try to cope with the situation. The clergy of the city was forced to erect notices over the campus, advising students to call for help if they were approached. While it gave us a bad image, Bob Ross, who has been a Church of Christ minister all these years, proved to be part of the answer by his wise counsel.

And I wish I had space for a separate piece on my visit with Bob Fife and the Westwood Christian Foundation in Los Angeles, which holds forth in the Westwood Christian Church, which is across the street from U.C.L.A. This is surely one of the greatest opportunities in the world for responsible Christian witness in the heart of an important academic community, and I am pleased to be a small part of it, listed as I am as one of its adjunct professors. Now that Scott Bartchy has joined Bob Fife as a scholar in residence the future looks bright for this work that is deserving of the support of us all.

I had extended assignments that ran for weeks at Emmanuel School of Religion and Kentucky Christian College, teaching on the history of the Stone-Campbell Movement, which I no longer refer to as the Restoration Movement, except when I have to, since that is a misnomer. More on that when you read the book I am writing on that history! I also made a brief but pleasant visit to Dallas Christian College, which is virtually next door to me in comparison to the hills of East Tennessee. I am impressed that all these institutions have very able and dedicated people, some of whom would be outstanding in anybody’s college anywhere.—the Editor