OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

James P. Needham, editor of Torch which has its constituency primarily among “conservative” Churches of Christ, recently editorialized about preachers. Quoting a sister to the effect that “we pay our preacher $30,000 per year to sit in his study,” the editor contends that people are not saved by pulpit preaching as much as through personal contact. So, while not begrudging the preacher for his pay, he wants him out ministering to those who need him most.

Editor Needham is also “alarmed and disgusted at the rash of fornicating preachers among us,” adding that it has reached epidemic proportions. He sees this as a cause of divorce among preachers, and he personally knows 25 preachers who have divorced. And he says he can name ten to fifteen preachers who have been accused of immoral conduct in the last two years. Since preachers, like politicians, are fallen men, we should not be shocked over sin, whether in Washington or in the pulpit. It is only when men “Walk by the Spirit” that we can expect a difference, but perhaps editor Needham is not asking too much to expect preachers to be men of the Spirit. This may be especially difficult in a hard-line, legalistic atmosphere.

During the summer there was a Gay Pride Day in Washington with 20,000 homosexuals and lesbians on the march. The mayor of the city, Marion Barry, who has appointed 60 gays to leadership positions in the city government, urged all gays to come out of the closet, politically as well as socially. The Washington Post estimates that 20% of the population of Washington D.C. is homosexual or lesbian.

Also during the summer President Reagan received a standing ovation before the PTA convention in Albuquerque when he insisted that the First Amendment to the Constitution wasn’t written to exclude religion from our schools. He touched a responsive chord when he invoked the name of God and asserted: “He who has so blessed this land should never have been expelled from our classrooms.”

Writing in Harbinger, Too (Box 1449, Orange Park, FL. 32067), N. Dane Tyer of Tulsa states: “I am a restorationist. I am committed to the present day realization of New Testament Christianity. Our focus, however, cannot be upon restoring the New Testament Church. This only leads to confusion.” The focus, he says, must be to regain the focus of the apostles, that is Jesus Christ.” Don’t you believe that all of us are restorationists in this sense?

Carl Ketcherside attended a world evangelism conference in Amsterdam, Holland during the summer. He writes of how one Sunday afternoon the delegates filled 64 buses and went to the beaches and parks to share their faith. “I had incredible experiences,” he says, “The beach is wall to wall with people, the women all topless and wearing the flimsiest bikinis. We won victories for Jesus.” We’ve asked him to write a series on his diverse experiences at the Amsterdam conference. Later in the summer he and Nell took a second trip to Europe, unrelated we may presume to crowded beaches and topless bikinis.

I was pleased to join many others in a volume of congratulatory letters to Leslie G. Thomas of the Brainerd Church of Christ in Chattanooga, who celebrated his 88th birthday anniversary, his 62nd wedding anniversary, and 70 years in the ministry all the same week. He still writes (36 books so far), counsels, and teaches three classes a week.

Churches of Christ, along with individuals, in 49 states, Canada, Bermuda, and Europe have contributed more than $1.5 million to feed the hungry in Ghana in recent months. They are also praying for rain for that drouth-stricken nation.

The Times- Tribune of Corbin, KY. published the story recently of how Steven Myers, a British Jewish politician, set out on an odyssey from London in search of fulfillment. His long search ended in a small church, the Shiner Church of Christ, near Williamsburg, KY. Referring to his baptism into Christ, he is quoted as saying: “When I came to the surface I felt that I had been pried loose from the seabed where I had been all my life. My baptism has resulted in an absolute peace of mind.” He was helped along the way by Janie Catron, a reader of this journal. Mr. Myers plans to return to England to “help his fellow Jews fight the same battle he has won.”

After 28 years as editor of Firm Foundation Reuel Lemmons wrote his last editorial on Aug. 23, in which he said: “We have some strong misgivings about the shattered Restoration movement. Continued polarization threatens to destroy it entirely.” But Reuel would not likely equate the demise of the Restoration Movement with the end of the church itself, though some of our editors draw no distinction. I wrote the retiring editor a “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” letter and meant it. The paper has been sold and the indications are that it will be more “conservative.” Reuel says the new owners are set upon a direction incompatible with his thinking, while the old owners promise that the paper will continue in the tradition of G. H. P. Showalter, who pre-ceded Reuel as editor. They didn’t say it would continue in the tradition of Reuel Lemmons or even Showalter and Lemmons. If this means bad blood, we are sorry, but those who know our history know that this is business as usual for our folk. Reuel sees himself as a “middle-of-the-road” editor, which may seem odd to some. All of us suppose we are in the middle-of-the-road, which may only mean that the “road” is very wide and the “middle” has narrow margins. But Reuel’s unhappy editorial may only mean that however well-intentioned he was he succeeded in pleasing but very few. To borrow from the metaphor, those who hog the middle-of-the-road are sometimes the same ones who do a lot of swerving, first to the right and then to the left, so that they are not in the middle as much as they think.