Summary and Review . . .

WHAT WE HAVE BEEN SAYING (1)

      Now that my editorial career is coming to a close, I thought it would be well to give a kind of summary and review of what I have been saying all these years. It could be seen as the last word on a number of subjects, or even as an interpretation of the whole. While it is an overworked term it could serve as "the bottom line" of forty years as an editor. In an important way it is also an evaluation, for I must select only a few themes from the hundreds introduced, and the perspective has to be broad. The details and examples have already been given in hundreds of issues of this journal. Here is the substance, the heart of the matter, in three installments in the last three numbers of the paper. 

An Experiment in Freedom 

      Whatever else I have been as an editor I have been a freedom rider, beckoning others to join the ride. I have first of all been free myself. I hardly see how any editor or writer anywhere could be freer than I have been, not even H.L. Mencken or Malcolm Muggeridge. I have been restricted by no party, hamstrung by no creed, or dictated to by any clique. I have not been for sale, not that there have been all that many trying to buy me. Nor have I had any ax to grind or any party to defend or perpetuate, which can be most confining. It is a fact that most editors of religious papers are not all that free, and their journals are often house organs.

      A large part of this is because I have been financially independent, making my own living as a professor and in business while giving my time as an editor. So as to qualify Ouida for an IRA account, the paper has for many years paid her $2,000 a year for her services, which adds up to being far below minimum wage. She is really worth more than that! But you'd be surprised how a small amount like that, properly invested, can build up over the years. I accuse her of getting rich on her paltry salary!

      But that illustrates our financial relationship to the paper. We make contributions to it ourselves to help keep it in the black, but I always manage to get Ouida paid. This paper has been adequately supported all these years, and we've never lacked funds when it comes to paying the bills. And yet we've never asked for help, not after the first few years at least.

      I decided early on that I would ask for no donations, and that I would not even make any reference to money or needs at all. If the paper died for lack of support, then it needed to die, I figured. I am pleased to be able to say that now that we are ceasing publication, it has nothing to do with lack of funds. It is nothing less than amazing how our needs have always been met.

      Most donations have been small, such as a few extra dollars along with a sub renewal. But some have been large and steady, year after year, mostly individuals but a few churches, freer ones obviously. One brother sent us $100 a month for years and years. I always wrote to thank him, but never a communication did I ever receive from him, not one word, all those years, only the checks, and I've never met him. We wondered if he might be an angel. Suddenly he stopped, but when he stopped others took up the slack. The financial support of this paper and its general survival, apart from any "promotion" at all, is one of the great stories of its history. It confirms my faith in the remnant church. If you have something to say in behalf of renewal, the remnant will not only find you but it will sustain you.

      We have of course sold lots of books through the years, a lot of hard work I might add, and the profit has gone to the paper. My speaking income through the years has also gone to the paper. And we've run a tight ship, a bit parsimonious one might say. If anything I've been more careful with the other person's money than I am with my own. We may have waited longer than we should have in getting new equipment, but what a difference the computer with its word processor, page maker, and printer has made!

      All in all, it has been a labor of love and tree of financial worry.

      By an experiment in freedom I mean much more than all this. I have been free to pursue any subject at all, barring none. I have been accused of sending up "trial balloons" just to see how they would fly, when I did not necessarily believe what I was writing. I would not put it that way, for in all that I have written I have believed it deserved a fair hearing in the marketplace of ideas. I will admit to holding ideas tentatively, as if to say, "This is the way I'm thinking just now, but I could be wrong. What do you think?"

      My most controversial article, if but one is mentioned, is the one I did in the series on my church visits, entitled "A Church For Gays and Lesbians." My readers really gave me a hard time on that one, and some quit me. The church visit series as a whole was, however, the most popular I ever did, with many requests that I put it in book form. But in the "gay" piece I made the mistake of showing appreciation for what the gay church is doing for a rejected segment of our society, and I ventured that we should love and accept homosexuals even when we do not approve of their lifestyle, like Jesus did.

      That is what I mean by being free, which sometimes costs you your blood. In my long years as an editor I've caught lots of flak for lots of things, all because I chose to be a free man in Christ.

      I've invited my readers to join me in the freedom march: free to think, free to question, tree to disagree, free to be different, free to change, even free to be wrong. I've called for freedom from shallowness and mediocrity, freedom from our insipid sectarianism, freedom from male-domination, freedom from Church of Christism. Not the least has been a call for freedom from irresponsible, tradition-bound interpretation of Scripture.

      Above all, however, is freedom in Christ. Freedom to follow him rather than the party; freedom to become more and more like him. Freedom to accept God's grace joyously. Freedom to love and accept as Jesus loved and accepted. Freedom to be oneself in Christ, and freedom to allow others to be different from ourselves.

An Honest Church: God's Noblest Work

      I am borrowing from Alexander Pope's great line, "An honest man is the noblest work of God." That says a lot about what I've been up to these forty years. Not only have I sought to be honest but to encourage the church to be honest. All through history an honest search for truth has been rare. The crux of the conflict between our Lord and the Pharisees was that he was honest and they weren't, some of them. I have long been convinced that our people in Churches of Christ are terribly deprived, and it is a self-deprivation. Behind self-deprivation is self-deceit. We have been playing games with ourselves, such as "We just take the Bible for what it says." And other such over-simplifications.

      Part of my goal has been to get people to be honest with the Bible and honest with themselves. What Lord Cromwell wrote to the divines of the Church of Scotland I have been saying to Churches of Christ, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, to think it possible that you may be mistaken." It would be a gloriously healing experience for our people, especially our leaders, to speak up and declare that we have been wrong about some things. But that requires candor that has mostly eluded us.

      An honest church! It is glorious to anticipate, and I do believe that we have begun to reap the firstfruits of self-integrity, which is self-examination. It is a matter of laying ourselves open before Him who knows our hearts. It takes courage as well as honesty for a church to admit that he has been wrong and to confess that it has been sectarian. But therein lies our victory and our salvation.

Nature of Truth

      As I look back over the years it is evident to me that much of what I have been saying is related to the nature of truth. We have not only searched for truth together, but we have decided that if a thousand old beliefs have to be discarded the search for truth must go on. And that together we will go wherever truth leads. I have emphasized the following:

      First, while truth itself is absolute, centered in God himself, our understanding of truth is relative. Absolute truth is there, but it is always beyond our grasp. We know only in part. This is why dogmatism is wrong, for the dogmatist assumes he knows all the truth.

      Second, there is a kind of paradox about learning truth, for it is like Socrates discovered, the more we learn the more we realize how little we know, and so the old philosopher could insist, "I know nothing." That is the mind of the real truth­ seeker: the more knowledgeable he becomes the more he realizes how ignorant he is.

      Third, while all truth is equally true all truth is not equally important. Once understood this proposition can change a person's thinking. She will have a better grasp of the nature of the Bible, for she will realize that some parts are more important than others. She will come to "make a difference" in the things she believes, seeing that some things are essential, others important but not crucial, and others trivial. She will be less legalistic, less concerned to cross every T and dot every I.

      Fourth, in the search for truth we must also make distinctions in the judgments we have to make of people. We speak of "brothers in error," but some errors are much more serious than others. There is error of the graver sort, such as ill-will, and errors of the lesser sort, such as being sincerely mistaken about some point of doctrine. We. will be less rigid about fellowshipping "brothers in error" when we realize that there are no other kind. We are all fallible and inclined to err.

      Fifth, truth also calls for distinguishing between things that are similar but have important differences, such as between the church and the Reformation Movement. Many Christians have never heard of our movement. Other distinctions to be made are between the gospel and the apostles' doctrine and between preaching and teaching.

      Sixth, that basic, essential truths about how to live are generally agreed to by people all around the world, and the essential Christian truths are agreed to by most all Christians. Our agreements are far greater than our differences, and we have far more in common than we like to admit. The problem we have about truth, for the most part, is not knowing truth (the truths that really matter) but in practicing truth. We know far more than we do!

      For instance, except for a few wild-eyed cults, every religion and philosophy the world over believes in the sanctity of human personality, and that we should treat each other decently and humanely. A very crucial truth, indeed, and we hold it in common. But we don't practice it. Every religion believes in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, but we don't practice it very well, as the condition of our world indicates.

      The human predicament is, therefore, due to our sin, being unfaithful to the great truths that we all know and agree to. We know the truth but we do it not.

      So, the most neglected truth of all is that it is urgent that we repent and cease doing the things we know to be wrong and start doing what we know to be right. Truth by its nature is always liberating. Truth sets us free. But only when do the truth. - the Editor 

(to be continued)