A LETTER FROM AUSTIN

This letter from the capital of our state and from a friend of many years tells a story I often hear. While this one may be better written than most and have a dramatic touch that is rare, it reflects a common experience among Churches of Christ. Once you give it a careful reading, you might be interested in the remarks that follow:

I recently spent three or four days visiting a dying man. He had been a leading and honorable citizen in the community where he lived for more than sixty years. At 81 he has been a member of the Church of Christ for nearly 35 years and had served as one of its elders for a quarter of a century.

He was very strict in all the traditions and doctrines, and he sat through dozens of “Gospel Meetings,” some of which I had conducted. He knew all the proper “proof texts” and could quote most of them by heart. He had worn out several Nichols Pocket Bible Encyclopedias and read his Bible religiously. He was always the first, or one of the first, to arrive at every meeting of the church.

However, in spite of all the sermons he heard, and all the Gospel Advocate Quarterlies he studied, and all the “Gospel Meetings,” and all the “proof texts,” and all the right doctrine, and even a superior moral integrity, he had not learned how to be an old man, or to accept the ravages of age. For months he was in deep depression. He “turned his face to the wall,” literally and figuratively, and ceased to eat. He cried often. It was Christmas Eve when I last spoke to him. Among his last words were, “I’ve ruined everybody’s Christmas.”

I read to him passages of solace and strength, but all he seemed to hear was “proof texts” about instrumental music, which he hated, from the Psalms; predestination, which he saw as “heresy,” from Romans - or premillennialism (“doctrine of devils”) from Revelation. There was little evidence that he prayed much or believed it has any practical results. His dear wife trudged stoically through each day, depressed, disillusioned, and without joy or hope.

As I sat at his bedside the horrible toll of legalism became clear to me. Legalism may suffice when human strength and resource are sufficient to carry on the day to day routine, but when the body fails and “the evil days come” it has no power. It blinds the heart’s eye to the Lord Jesus Christ and to his tender love. I once championed such legalism and encouraged this man to walk that road. Finally, by the grace of God I saw the futility of legalism, but I was unable to persuade him to take the royal road of joy and grace. He died on New Year’s Day.

At his funeral one of the dear sisters in his church, who was an old schoolteacher of mine, raked me over the coals for forsaking “the truth” and for disappointing the now departed elder. I yet weep for the elder and his wife, and for that dear sister who taught me over 30 years ago, and I regret that I had to contribute to their unhappy state. All this would cause me to be terribly depressed and guilt-ridden if I did not know a God who is full of grace and loving forgiveness.

It is not that I doubt this man’s salvation, for he was a baptized believer. I sorrow because of what he missed in life, that he struggled in a wilderness when he could have feasted in Canaan’s happy land, and that he forfeited joy for legalism. Yes, I weep for him and his wife, dear precious souls deluded by a system of law. Peace, joy, and hope could have been theirs in “the fountain of age” rather than despondency and depression.

Yes, I weep for them, Leroy, for he was my Dad and she is my Mother.

With love,

Ivan E. Jameson

There is what might be called a “freedom movement” among Churches of Christ, which brings to mind the words of the old German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel: the story of history is the story of man’s struggle to be free. Is this not the essence of United States history and the history that is now unfolding in Poland? That it was a passion to be free that catapulted the Stone-Campbell movement is the theme of a recent book by Ronald E. Osborn entitled Experiment in Freedom. It may well be a basic ingredient of all church history.

It is always more fun to make history than to study it, and that is the point of the above letter as I see it. I say fun while joy is the better word. The exhilarating joy of being free! But it is within the nature of things that what is joy to one is sometimes pain to another. What is liberating to a son proves to be an oppressive burden to a father. It is one of those things that we cannot do much about. We can only hope to understand. That involves learning more of the nature of freedom, and one of the first lessons to be learned is that it is a two-edged sword. One edge cuts men free, the other cuts men down. I’ve known something of Ivan Jameson’s pilgrimage through the years, and I am confidant that it has been a pilgrimage of joy. But what was joyful to Ivan was painful to his parents.

I have seen it all over the country. Freedom is a mixed blessing to many of our younger people since they see no way to share their experiences with their parents. It is common for them to go for years “living a double life,” as they sometimes describe it, pretending to believe the Church of Christ party line while their hearts are elsewhere. And some never break away from the old sectarian shell because of what they suppose it would do to their parents. Occasionally it is the reverse of this: parents make the break but they are uneasy about what the kids will think. It is reminiscent of Thomas and Alexander Campbell, each of whom, separated by an ocean for two years, had experiences in freedom unknown to the other. Each was anxious about breaking the news that he had left the old family church. In their case the story had a happy ending, but it is not always so.

Our Lord understood all this in his teaching on true discipleship: “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). Even when one has resolved to put Jesus first, it still hurts when her parents supposes she has renounced the faith. But this is part of what I am saying. Freedom is such that it sometimes has that kind of price tag. There isn’t much we can do except to pay the price. I see that in Ivan’s letter. He is not complaining about the price he had to pay, and he has no regrets about cutting the umbilical cord, but still it hurts. “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

My favorite part of the letter is Ivan’s conviction that his dear old father is safely within the grace of God, even though he was in the clutch of legalism. Something like that better be the case or there is no hope for any of us. But Ivan wanted his parents to know Jesus as he knows him, and to look more to the Cross and less to the party. The security and joy the soul longs for is found only in a Person, never in a performance, however perfect. Like the apostle Paul, Ivan wanted for his parents what he wants for himself, and that is to be found in Christ “not having a righteousness of my own derived from law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (Philip. 3:9).

To put it another way, we do not want our loved ones to live in the basement or the attic of the mansion we all share. We do not only want them in the house but in the banquet hall, sharing the table that he has prepared before us. Jesus came not only that we might have life, but to have it abundantly. He wills for us well-being, not simply being. Sometime when Ivan is in Denton again, driving one of those chartered buses that he parks in front of 1201 Windsor Dr., I will have to tell him about my parents, who, understandably, wanted me to be the minister of a large, influential Church of Christ, which they were persuaded I could become. It is a long story that reached its climax one day in the front yard of the old family home in Dallas. My old Dad said something like this to me, out of the clear blue: “I see, son, that you have to do what you have to do. I can’t expect you to be what I want you to be, for you must be what the Lord wants you to be. And that’s good enough for me.”

He wasn’t much of a speechmaker, but I thought that was a great speech, and that was his victory, not mine.

Ivan’s old Dad may have wanted to say something like that, but didn’t know how. He may say it yet, in one way or another. Maybe through this article. - the Editor