OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

This will be the first summer in ten years that Ouida will be free to travel. so we plan a few trips together. including one in August to the World Convention of Churches of Christ in Long Beach. We encourage all who can to meet us there. You can register for the Convention by writing to the WCCC, 100 N. Central Expwy, Suite 804, Dallas, Tx. 75080, or you can call 214-480-0118. You will enjoy a great fellowship with our folk from allover the world. Ouida will join me also as I speak for several congregations within driving distance in our area. But for the most part we will be home during the summer since I have the task of revising my history book on the Stone-Campbell Movement. Ouida says she likes it that way since she enjoys being home, especially now that the redecoration is complete. That will give us an opportunity to visit with you if you happen to be coming our way.

Ouida wants me to remind you that there will be no issue of this journal for July and August as usual, so we will not be calling again until the September number and then for only the rest of the year. We cease publication with the December issue. This paper has become a habit that will be hard to break. Now and again I tell Ouida that it is gracious of her to keep on living with an old man like me, and she replies that it is appropriate for an old lady to live with an old man, though she isn’t all that old. But recently when I said something about advancing years and how God in his mercy makes life in this world less attractive to us as we grow old, she turned up these lines from Emerson that become increasingly impressive to us:

Hope writes the poetry of the boy, but memory that of the man.

Man looks forward with smiles but backward with sighs.

Such is the providence of God.

The cup of life is sweetness at the brim—the flavor is impaired

as we drink deeper. and the dregs are made bitter that we may

not struggle when it is taken from our lips.

In a recent issue of the Blooming (Illinois) Post-Amerikan our co-worker Cecil Hook was written up favorably by Steve LaPrade under the title “Fundamentalist Rebel,” though Cecil is not really a fundamentalist. It says that through his several books he is challenging the Church of Christ to start practicing Christianity. I doubt if Cecil would put it that way, but all of us who read Cecil would agree with the writeup when it says that Cecil seeks to persuade the Church of Christ members to fully examine what it means to be a Christian. The article noted that some of Cecil’s books are in their fourth printing. If you are interested in his books write to him at 1350 Huisache, New Braunfels. Tx. 78130.

The News Network International releases bulletins that show that there is still “the suffering church” around the world, even in this post-Communist age. Christians have been imprisoned and killed in Pakistan under Islamic law. While Columbia is reviewing its constitution that links the state to the Roman church, that church still has special privileges that make it difficult for Protestants. Riot squads in Peru have killed many Christian leaders. Conditions are desperate for the small underground Christian movements in Saudi Arabia made up of both guest workers and Saudi nationals who have been converted to the faith. Some who were found out were beaten up and arrested by the religious police and their whereabout is unknown. Several African countries, including Nigeria, Sudan, and Mauritania (which has only 10-15 known believers) persecute Christians; Muslims are seeking to set up Islamic laws that will illegalize the Christian faith. In northern India militant Hindus make life difficult for Christians , In Malaysia the rights of churches are progressively limited, While China reluctantly eases some restrictions against churches, Christians continue to be persecuted in some provinces, In several countries of the former Soviet Union the Orthodox Church, which was itself longtime persecuted by the Communists, now wants to reestablish its authority in those states and wants laws even more severe against non-Orthodox churches,

While World Vision and other agencies moved in to supply physical needs of the victims of the Los Angeles riots, the International Bible Society provided 30,000 Scripture booklets through a network of Black and Hispanic churches.

The Burke Road Church of Christ in Houston has a semi-annual dedication of infants, still a very rare practice among Churches of Christ. This consists of a ceremony in which parents and congregation commit themselves to the Christian nurture of the children, The church is called on to live lives of love, faith, and service as an example for the children. Along with prayer for the infants the elders lay their hands upon them, The church reports that for some years now this dedication ceremony has been a meaningful and blessed occasion for the church. Shouldn’t such experiences help us to understand why other churches have been doing this for hundreds of years and call it infant baptism. Do a few drops of water make all that much difference to such a ceremony?

A recent bulletin of the Kanawha City Church of Christ in Charleston, W. V. has a quotation from one of its ministers, Steve Fox, that reflects the kind of change in thinking that many among us have longed hoped for and worked for: “My concept of Christian unity has changed drastically in the 21 years since I graduated from college, Without going into great detail, my focus has changed from an ‘exact conformity’ pattern to a ‘unity in diversity’ approach, Sometimes I’m amazed at (and ashamed of) some things I believed and taught in the past. I pray that means I’m growing in my knowledge of Biblical unity,” It is an encouraging sign when our preachers can tell our people what they are ashamed of and how they have changed their minds, There are many that think this way who are not yet ready to say so.