Soldier On! w/Leroy Garrett   — Occasional Essays

There was some question whether I would be up for this nine-day, 2200 mile trip that would involve speaking appointments at three churches and two educational institutions, and lots of personal ministering. Ouida pressured my doctor for his verdict, and I think she wanted him to tell me not to try it. "We’ll see if we can’t get him ready," he said. He put me on steroids for the entire time. When I told him that the specialist (the surgeon) had said that, at my age, I shouldn’t expect to have all that much energy anyway, he said, "He doesn’t know how active you usually are."

The churches knew of my surgery, and they said I could do my thing sitting down, if that would help. But it would have been embarrassing to sit for my lectures to the students at Milligan College. At the first church -– the first days of the trip – they had a chair ready for me before the congregation. But I went to the podium, explaining that I would sit if I needed to. I didn’t need to, and from then on I made it fine on my feet. By the time of the lectures at Milligan I was virtually back to normal. I joked with Ouida, "I’m back to feeling like I’m 87!"

At that first church – Forest Home Church of Christ in Franklin – I developed the theme of our being predestined to be conformed to the likeness of Christ, drawn from Romans 8:29. I noted that this answered two of the three basic questions of life – our origin, our mission on planet earth, our destiny – in that God’s purpose for us in this life and in eternity is that we "be conformed to the image of his Son." In this world we bear his image inwardly and spiritually; in the next we will even bear his image outwardly, having a body like his glorious body (Philippians 3:20).

That Sunday evening there was a special service at the old Owens Chapel Church of Christ in Nashville. A number of longtime friends were there, along with several faculty from Lipscomb University, both retired and in-service. One of them gave me a bear hug, telling me that I was the one who got him out of the ministry, which I took as a dubious compliment. But from what he said in introducing me, I think he meant I had something to do with his being fired from a legalistic church, which set him on his pilgrimage of freedom.

On this occasion I took Habukkuk 1:6 as my text, "I will work a work in your day that you would not believe if someone would have told you." I laid before this "very Church of Christ" assembly some of the remarkable changes that are presently taking place among us – things I could not have imagined decades ago – not even if someone had told me. I pointed to the recent ACU Lectures where leaders from both Christian Churches and Churches of Christ gathered to talk and pray about unity – and how leaders in both churches will meet at the 2006 North American Christian Convention (Christian Churches) in an effort to undo the division that occured between the two churches in 1906.

I referred to the significant publication of The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, published by Eerdmans, an international press, written and edited by scholars of all three churches – Disciples of Christ, Christian Churches, and Churches of Christ. I also told them about the Stone-Campbell Dialogue, an on-going study-prayer group made up of leaders from all three churches, including women.

None of us would have believed "back then" that such things could ever happen

In the question session that followed I was asked what I considered the most serious challenge/problem facing us as a people. I named two. The first is one faced by all churches – taking the discipleship of Jesus seriously. Not only to believe in him but to believe him! – such as when he said, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven."

The second, which is especially a challenge to Churches of Christ, is to work out a responsible hermeneutic, to be biblically responsible – to realize, for instance, how cultural prejudices influence our treatment of Scripture. It is a matter of being honest with the Bible, including its difficulties and mysteries. I dared to tell them that its OK to say that we don’t know for sure what a passage is saying!!

We enjoyed a beautiful drive from Nashville to Johnson City – nearly 300 miles – as guests of Joe and Cornelia Bain, longtime friends that we try to see when in Tennessee. They had a friend in the area to visit, so they stayed over to hear my lectures at Milligan College, and then brought us back to the Nashville area where I had another church appointment.

The lectures at the college – to students in chapel – were in honor of Henry E. and Emerald Webb. The lectures are appropriately always on Christian unity, for Dr. Webb – 40 years a history professor at Milligan – has long been a promoter of unity among our divided churches.

My subject was "Christian Unity and World Peace," the thesis of which was that there can be no world peace until Jesus’ prayer for the unity of his church – which implies a loving community that will have a redemptive influence upon the world -- is realized. It is divided, hateful religions that have created our troubled, terrorized world.

In one lecture I told the students of two monuments that stand in our "most Christian city" – Nashville, of course, with its 1000 churches and Christian music. One monument that stands along highway 65 honors Nathan Bedford Forest, the famed Confederate general who afterwards was co-founder of the infamous Ku Klux Klan.

The other monument stands between Music City and Vanderbilt University in the garden of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society. It honors the four founding pioneers of the Restoration Movement, of which most of them were heirs It was my way of introducing them to Barton W. Stone, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, and Walter Scott. I set forth the unity principles these men advocated.

The contrast between these monuments dramatize the conflict we see in our insecure world, I told the students. One stands for exclusion, violence, hate, even racism. The other stands for inclusion, unity, and peace. I ventured that the monument to a founder of the Ku Klux Klan – welcoming visitors to our "most Christian city" – shamefully points up the problem Christianity faces around the world – we don’t practice what we preach!

The other monument – inspired by Christ’s prayer for unity so that the world will believe – is the answer to that problem. A divided church can’t be the true church! And it can’t win a lost world to Christ!

When I visited the Forest Mill Church of Christ in Manchester – the Sunday after Milligan --- I had occasion in a class before the main service to refer to the monument that honors General Forest. I made it clear that I had no problem with honoring any brave soldier – but are Christians to honor someone who founded and perpetuated the Ku Klux Klan?

Afterwards a middle-aged brother – a good church member of course -- told me that I needed to read General Forest’s departing words to his troops. He said they made him weep. I assured him that I didn’t question the general’s piety– that was in fact the problem, that a "pious" man would do the Ku Klux Klan! He then defended the Klan. It also "got after" some whites who didn’t do right, he assured me. He was serious, dead serious!

At the main service I spoke on "The Humiliation of Christ," showing that our Lord, who, "even though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). It was a humiliation that led to death, even death on the cross. And for all humankind. A reminder of the humiliation of Christ seemed appropriate for a congregation where even one person – even one – had the Ku Klux Klan in his heart.

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