The Garnett Rd. Church of Christ in Tulsa finished their new facility in March, just in time to host a unity gathering of leaders from Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. Over 3,000 were present their first Sunday in the new building. As part of the celebration they fed “the 5000” at a dinner for friends, members and former members.

Several of our readers sent us clippings of the “Dear Abby” column in which Abigail Van Buren tells of a Disciples of Christ minister’s estrangement from his daughter and her husband because they allowed the minister’s grandchild to be christened Episcopalian. Abby rebuked the grandparents for their intolerance, saying “Until you respect your daughter’s right to religious freedom, forget about your ‘rights’ as a grandparent.” In a subsequent column Abby quoted from another Disciples minister who commended her and explained that the Christian Church doesn’t claim to be the only Christians and has always worked for the unity of all believers. The wife of another Disciples minister also wrote Abby suggesting that the grandparents need to get acquainted with their own heritage. Abby told her readers that Kenneth L. Teegarden, president of the Disciples, had also written her, expressing similar sentiments. A reader of ours in Indiana wrote to us that he would never have believed that such a controversy would appear in “Dear Abby.” Since that columnist appears to be every ounce an opportunist, I would have believed it.

The National Coalition of TV Violence reports that violence on TV has increased 65% in the past four years. This includes the Saturday a.m. cartoons for children. The U.S. News & World Report states that “a wide-ranging drive is under way to improve the quality of TV shows for American children.” If you wish to be kept informed on this vital problem and perhaps lend a helping hand, ask Martha Roundtree, a true crusader, to put you on her mailing list. Address:7945 MacArthur Blvd., Cabin John, MD 20818.

Little Rock Litigation

The latest on the lawsuit in Little Rock, in which a longtime member of the Sixth and Izard Church of Christ is asking the court to order the elders to reveal financial information to the members, is that the elders asked the court to dismiss the case on the ground that they are immune to such litigation because of separation of church and state. This the court refused to do, noting that it was not the “laws of God” at issue but the laws of the State of Arkansas, for the Sixth and Izard Church of Christ is incorporated according to such laws and amenable to them. The issue for Churches of Christ in this case is that the elders are behaving contrary to what we have always stood for as a people, freedom of information in reference to the affairs of the church. The elders act as if they have something to hide, and they go against both Scripture and our own recognized practice in this matter. One of the most influential men in Church of Christ history, David Lipscomb, said this: “The elders are not to rule by arbitrary authority, as lords over God’s heritage, but in all matters it is their duty to let every act of the congregation to be known to all and to satisfy everyone of the congregation of the rightness of the proposed action, and to hear every man’s objections and seek to remove them and lerad them as examples to the flock, so that all may be united in one mind and one judgement and may as one body all work harmoniously and heartily to the same end” (Quoted in The Role of Elders in the New Testament Church by Waymon D. Miller, p. p.29).

Don DeWelt of College Press recently visited Christian Church missions in Poland and reports that he had freedom of movement and assembly. He was accompanied by a native minister. He was encouraged by the faithfulness of these deprived people.