OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

I would like to hear from you in reference to my current series on what the Church of Christ must do to be saved. Write to me, pro or con, and let me know what you think:, and I would like permission to publish your response. This is an issue that merits free and open discussion.

We run a tight ship at our house these days. I rise each a.m. about 6 and put on my togs for my two-mile run down Windsor Dr., but before I leave I awake Ouida and we ease Mother Pitts to the bathroom. Ouida goes back to bed for awhile longer while I run, after which I go to my study for scheduled reading, which is presently in and about the Old Testament. Ouida comes after awhile and says, “By the time we get mother in her chair breakfast will be ready.” After breakfast Ouida feeds her mother, which, with a syringe, takes a long time, while I return to my study. The mail takes a lot of time, and two days a week I prepare for classes at Dallas Christian College, which I greatly enjoy, especially when I can use my own history book as a text as I am doing this term. I often have lunch at the college with interesting friends; sometimes I have lunch with Ouida at home and sometimes I lunch with some friend in Denton. There are always the phone calls, and writing this paper each month is no small task. Ouida finds time to mail out books, make deposits, answer some mail, keep records, and ride herd on the subscription list, which gives her a good excuse to play with the computer. Once I compose the material for an issue of this paper, Ouida puts it on our page maker. We then take it out to be laser printed, which makes it just as you see it except it is in 20 separate sheets. Now photo-ready, we turn it over to the printer. Then it has to be prepared for mailing, which takes most of two days.

When I am gone for days and even weeks at a time, which through the years has been often, Ouida has to do even more, and someone has to come in to help her with her mother. At noon we take Mother Pitts from her lift chair and put her back to bed. In the meantime Ouida diapers her, bathes her, and pampers her. We get her up again about 5 p.m., or whenever I get back from Dallas. Ouida prepares the evening meal. While I wash the dishes she again feeds her mother, always something of an ordeal. In the evening I am sometimes gone, or I am back to my study or doing my thing at the computer. I never catch up on the mail, not in 39 years! Ouida can now relax, except that company may come, or she needs to listen to someone on the phone, or she needs to iron, or sew for her daughter or grandson, or serve as barber for several men (The last time the grandson came for a haircut he brought along a friend, “Grandma, can you cut his hair too?”). About 10 p.m. we put Mother Pitts back in bed. We retire, thanking the God of heaven for “life, breath, and all things”—including each other.

MCC-Dallas is building the Cathedral of Hope, which will be the largest church of its kind in the world—an outreach to Gays and Lesbians. During 1990 they added 220 members and had 1,900 visitors. They have announced a gala Easter service to be held in a theater in downtown Dallas. They do not lack for innovative ideas, such as plans for “Parking Lot Fellowship Hours” and “Street Dances.” In their bulletin they describe themselves as people who live in a perpetual war zone, rejected by their families, condemned by the church, persecuted by the state, assaulted by bullies, and plagued by a devastating disease. They have a viable ministry to AIDS victims. The Church of Christ I attend received a request that it minister to an AIDS victim here in Denton. I was asked to call on him. The day I visited him his father was being buried that very hour. He did not attend the funeral (at a Church of Christ) because his family did not want him around. Ouida prepared a Thanksgiving dinner for him and I took it to his bedside. He had only a cat for company. Now in Dallas dying of his disease in a facility supported in part by MCC-Dallas, he wrote us a letter of appreciation. He was both pleased and surprised that anyone in the church would not only visit with him but even bring him a plate of food.

Some of our readers who attended the Abilene Christian U. Lectureship report that they felt winds of change blowing across the campus. Not only did the lectures and classes themselves reflect more openness, but the conversations under the big tent revealed that our people are moving away from the obscurantism of the past and are looking for a new day for Churches of Christ. Cecil Hook for one, who had a booth under the tent, wrote that, “I should have had a recorder to capture the mentions of your name by those who came by for a visit at the booth. Change continues to accelerate. People are being more outspoken all along. I had only one negative response while at Abilene.” An east Texas reader reported, ‘They are now saying what you and Carl Ketcherside were saying 30 years ago.” Well, it doesn’t matter who speaks up for a free and responsible church so long as they speak up, right? It is the “Confession” that I am looking for (read my series on what the Church of Christ Must Do to Be Saved) and I hope we don’t have to wait 30 years for that.

One of our California readers responded to our recent essay on staying out of debt (including churches) by sending us this amusing quote from John Ruskin, which we pass along to you: “Don’t get into debt. Starve and go to heaven—but don’t borrow. Try first begging—I don’t mind if it’s really needful—stealing! But don’t buy things you can’t pay for! And of all manner of debtors pious people building churches they can’t pay for, are the most detestable non-sense to me. Can’t you preach and pray behind the hedges—or in a sandpit—or a coalhole first?”

While I am not a pacifist (though I suppose every Christian is in some sense a pacifist), I appreciate the historic and ongoing concern for peace on the part of Quakers. Since Ouida and I regularly contribute to the humanitarian work of the American Friends Service Committee all around the world, to friend and foe alike, I received a letter from them about the Gulf war, part of which I quote: “This is a sad time for all pacifists. The outbreak of war in the Gulf represents a massive failure of governments, political leaders and international institutions. The AFSC believes deeply that war could have been averted; it must be ended before the imperatives of warfare become fully en-trenched.” While I think most of us would agree with the ideal of “No war-period!,” it is a question of whether we can avert war in a world of Adolf Hitlers and Saddam Husseins. But still we need those who adamantly hold to the ideal without compromise, and we appreciate the Quakers for this. I find myself closer to the Quakers than to the Baptist group in Texas, who sent me a copy of the letter they sent President Bush, part of which I quote: “Many of us in these parts salute you and our military in the recent bombing of the so-called ‘bomb shelter.’ We endorse this hit! We suggest you give them a brief warning to get out of that Baghdad hotel, then level it. We also urge you to consider the use of nuclear weapons. Whatever you do, eliminate Saddam Hussein!”

The Gateway Restorationist Unity Forum has recently been organized in St. Louis, consisting of folk from Independent Christian Churches, Churches of Christ, and Disciples of Christ. In a recent organizational meeting they decided to have a public event next October 12 at St. Louis Christian College with participants from all three churches. For more information write the Disciples of Christ office, Box 277, Festus, Mo. 63028, or call 314-933-0394.

A cassette tape has been sent free gratis to 3,610 Church of Christ ministers. The Belmont Church in Nashville (once a Church of Christ) spent $10,000 on this “Renewal in Action” project. The tape is a sermon by Jack Deere, a “Charismatic,” on “God’s Power For Today’s Church.” The Belmont Church’s outreach to Churches of Christ included a well-attended breakfast program in an off-campus facility during the ACU lectures, during which Don Finto and Jim Bevis, both former Church of Christ ministers, spoke. Since leaving Churches of Christ, Don Finto has moved up higher, having now proclaimed himself an apostle.