OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

When I returned from the Orient after my 45-day journey, I called Ouida from Los Angeles to let her know I had arrived safely. I asked, "Is this the editor of Restoration Review?" She replied, "No, this is the former editor, for I just resigned!" She did a great job in putting out the last issue, and among the endearing terms by which she is known about the house is "former editor." There are of course more endearing terms than that!

With this issue we conclude another I volume. The January issue will begin our 37th year of publication, the 3lst year under the name Restoration Review. The new theme will be on the hope of the believer, which we plan to develop over the next two years. We hope you will be with us for this series. We are confident it will encourage you.

Hollywood has never hesitated to assault the Christian faith in both cinema and TV, even to the point of ridicule, presuming it could get by with it, as it usually does. But it may have gone too far in its production of The Last Temptation of Christ. The American Family Association, led by Donald Wildmon, to which Ouida and I belong, reports that it helped to boycott the movie to the extent that only 1% of the nation's theatres have shown it, only about 130 of 13,000. The AMF distributed four million petitions to theatres and worked through nearly 1,000 Christian radio and TV stations in staging the boycott. It looks as if the movie will lose upward of $12,000,000. But it is left to Warren L. McFerran in The New American to describe the movie for what it is: "It is clearly blasphemous and heretical. It contains a powerful message and has a distinct purpose. It turns all truth upside down: right becomes wrong, and wrong become right; evil becomes good, and good becomes evil. The betrayer of Jesus is the hero; worshiping the flesh is worshipping God; Satan is God; God is Satan; love is lust. The Savior needs to be saved; the Forgiver needs forgiveness. There is only one word that can fully describe this movie and the force be-hind it: Antichrist!" Ouida and I boycotted it, which does not mean much since we boycott nearly all movies. But there is no reason for us to be surprised when Holly-wood and the world hate Jesus Christ.

In his church bulletin from Houston John Wright tells how delightfully surprised he was, even shocked, by what he heard while listening to preaching over his car radio. The preacher didn't shout and there was no pompous "preacher voice." He simply talked about the Scriptures in a simple, straightforward manner. He closed by thanking the people for their responses, and then — and this is what was too much for John Wright — he asked that they please send no money since the program is already paid for! He was pleased to learn that it was a Church of Christ program out of Abilene.

If you collect goofs, here is one from a church bulletin that might win first prize: "The Church of christ in Huntsville, Texas will host a Gospel Singing Saturday night." It was probably a foiled effort to obey our unwritten law of referring to ourselves as "the church of Christ," and the typist got his c's crossed. But some wag could see in this a Freudian slip, indicating how we have exalted the church, our church, above Jesus Christ.

Angela Woodhall reports from Zambia (Africa) that a Church of Christ there has solved its unemployment problem by organizing work groups in the areas of pottery, art' woodcarving, and carpentry. They sell enough locally to employ 42 people, and they hope to start exporting.