Pilgrimage of Joy. . . No. 43

RECOVERY OF SOMETHING OLD
W. Carl Ketcherside

It is amazing how the history of the “kingdom of God” is interwoven with and affected by the things which transpire in the kingdoms of men. Although we have no continuing city here, we have to live in a lot of them which are not going to continue, and in which rot and decay have already set in. We may be strangers and pilgrims, but we are also sojourners in a land that is not ours. Whatever happens politically, economically, or socially affects us all. Candidates for glory die in times of epidemics and plagues as do the rankest unbelievers. All of us alike live in an atmosphere that has been colored by guilt and sin.

In March of 1968 President Johnson shook the nation by announcing that he would not enter the race for another term. That “waved the flag” which made it possible for everyone to get into the race. It was won by Richard Nixon who received 43.4 percent of the popular vote to 42.7 by Hubert Humphrey. A surprising 13.5 percent went to George Wallace. The stage was thus set for the traumatic and as yet unexplained condition which later transpired and took the name of Watergate.

On April 4, Martin Luther King was shot to death on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, where he had gone to assist in a strike by black sanitation workers. On June 8 James Earl Ray was arrested in London and charged with the wanton murder. Frustration, disappointment, and depression gripped the black community and expressed itself in looting and violence. “Then, as if a frightful and malign influence was manipulating the nation, Robert Kennedy was shot on June 6 in Los Angeles. It cast a pall over a peaceful populace who had rejected forceful overthrow of the existing order as a rational alternative to the ballot box.

During the year, death claimed one of the greatest examples of triumph over handicaps in our nation. At the age of 87, in Westport, Connecticut, Helen Keller gave up the struggle to maintain a life which had been marked by privation and suffering. At the age of nineteen months she became blind, deaf and mute. Under the careful and gentle tutelage of Anne Sullivan Macy she quickly learned to read and in 1900 she was able to enter Radcliffe College. She graduated with honors in 1904. Later she lectured throughout the world, visiting wounded veterans and giving them hope and infusing them with courage.

In spite of the frightful murders, the looting, and the rapine which ripped our nation apart, the year ended on a note of real faith. Nell and I were in the home of Jerry, our son, and with his family on Christmas Eve when it happened. Three astronauts aboard Apollo 8 had orbited the moon several times. They were the first human beings to view the far side of the moon. Suddenly one of them began to read from the sacred scriptures. Man’s voice came from the greatest distance it had ever come with the age-old truth. It seemed that everything was all right again.

It was about this time that I had matured to the place where I had learned to trust in God fully and completely. I began to realize that he knew the end from the beginning, and could call the things that be not as though they were. He holds the whole world in His hand. This made two changes in my life. First of all, I prayed before arriving at a place that God would take the whole thing under His providence and bring together those who needed me most and let me relate to them for the mutual upbuilding of both of us. Since that time I have never been uptight about crowds. I have spoken to those who were present with equal fervor, whether there were six or six thousand, and have praised His name for what He did.

Second, I began to pray that He would open up for me great doors and effectual, although the adversaries were many. I realize that He never had a less qualified person through whom to work. The only thing I had going for me was an intense desire to see His will accomplished, and a fervent love for people. My educational attainments Were as nothing and I cast what little I did have to the dogs. I had no degrees and had never been to college. But I resolved to go wherever the opportunity was afforded and to do my best. That prayer opened up for me chances which were tremendous and for which I am humbly grateful and profoundly thankful.

On February 13 I went to Milligan College to deliver an address at the Welshimer Memorial Lectureship. Brother P. H. Welshimer was in Canton, Ohio when a great revival was held by Billy Sunday. He followed up on those who made a profession, baptizing hundreds into Christ. He began the largest adult Bible Class in the nation at the time. A Welshimer Room is contained in the beautiful library which bears his name at Milligan, and every year a lectureship is held in his honor. My theme was “The Cross and the Growth of the Church.”

That night I was scheduled to speak at Erwin, Tennessee, as one of five speakers brought in by a joint rally of Protestant Churches, each year, to demonstrate that, in spite of their differences, Jesus Christ is Lord. It afforded an opportunity for those with varied doctrinal biases to meet others in the community. That afternoon I was interviewed over radio. I then spoke to more than 700 persons gathered in the building of the First Baptist Church, following which I held a dialogue session with the Protestant clergy of the area. I came away convinced that these men were greatly responsible for the perpetuation of feuds and divisions.

The next morning I spoke to more than a thousand students in the local high school. At noon I broadcast a sermon from the pulpit of the First Christian Church. As I prepared to fly out of the area that afternoon, I looked back upon my stay of one and a half days, and thought of the bases I had touched. It was apparent that God was opening doors, for by no stretch of the imagination could I conceive of myself arranging all of these things. But it was merely beginning.

A little more than two weeks later, on March 3-7 found me at Langley Air Force Base for a Religious Emphasis Week. It was arranged by George C. Fisher, Wing Chaplain of the 4500th Air Base Command. Brother Fisher was up for retirement soon and wanted to leave a heritage to the men. I was met at the air terminal by a Filipino soldier in a limousine. He was to be my orderly while on base and took me to a luxury apartment which was to be my home. It was stocked with all kinds of liquor when I arrived and with the same amount when I left.

The next morning, which was Sunday, I was to speak in three Protestant Chapels, one immediately after the other. My car was awaiting when I finished at one to hustle me over to the next one. I was saddened by the fact that I could not talk directly to the men, shake hands with them, and share with them. That evening I spoke to the Protestant men of the base at the fourth chapel, following a barbecue. I answered questions from the audience. They were a different kind of questions than one hears in civilian life.

There followed in succession in coming days a meeting with the Junior Youth Group, a bunch of young people, some of whose fathers were flying the skies over Vietnam, and a dinner with a High School Group, during which I fielded their questions and learned a lot about their hangups. I ate at the Officer’s Club, and often had early breakfast with men dressed in their flying suits who would be in the air in the next hour with the Far East as their destination. We explored the question of war and its moral force.

One of the most interesting meetings was an address to the 316th Field Maintenance Squadron. Colonel Barner, a bluff Roman Catholic, issued a commander’s call, which meant that the men in the squadron had to attend or be in the hospital. It was a captive audience. Many were resentful, a few of them openly hostile. In the group were hard-bitten men from the streets of Brooklyn and New York City, farm boys from the wheat fields of Kansas, and sun-tanned lads from ranches in Texas and Arizona. That day I received a lesson in how to weld an army of trained men together out of raw recruits from every walk of life. I began on time and ended on time. There was no dragging the feet in the military.

The last day there were two addresses. One was to the Protestant Women of the base. They were joined by busloads of women from two nearby bases. It was for the women I felt the greatest compassion. They were separated from their men for weeks on end and never knew how they would return, if they did. Life for these women was a cycle of worry and fear. There was the daily dread of the knock on the door to reveal the loss of a loved one on some foreign soil. In the evening we closed with a grand finale, a meeting for everyone. During the time I was on the base I prayed more than I had for a long time. It was easy to sense the loneliness of those I met, people who could establish no routine, who had no certain home.

I went almost immediately to Santa Clara, California, to speak at the Sunday school convention. It consisted of more than 600 superintendents and teachers, representing every evangelical church in the great valley, except the Church of Christ. It was held in Calvary Baptist Church, and I stayed in the “prophet’s chamber” of the church. This was a lovely two-room apartment upstairs. It was well-stocked with food of every kind, so that one could fix his own meals and even entertain visitors if he liked.

The congregation had started seven years before with twenty-one members meeting in a home. The Sunday following the convention, the goal was 1400. They had registered 1380 the Sunday before. I did not get to talk to the two ministers. They were not there. They were out making calls the entire time. Another spent his time in the hospitals. But I talked to other members of the staff about the phenomenal growth. They attributed it to two things --- the people found their needs supplied and the fellowship. The motto of the church was “Where you are a stranger only once, and then only for a few minutes.” In addition to speaking each night I also taught two workshops.

But the thing that gave me the greatest satisfaction was an invitation to address the evangelical preachers of the area at a noon luncheon. There were almost 300 present. The president of the group was a Baptist. The man who introduced me was a member of the Salvation Army. It was just the kind of group I had been looking for to tryout a new approach to restoration. I spoke on “Renewal through Recovery of the apostolic proclamation, purpose and power.” As I spoke I noticed the men taking envelopes from their pockets and hastily jotting down notes. Little did they realize that they were being treated to Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, presented in the light of contemporary needs.

I pointed out that renewal was not the creation of something new, but the recovery of something old. We had surrendered a lot of provinces which had to be recaptured. To do this demanded a strategy for world conquest. As I offered them such a strategy, they seemed deeply grateful.