Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 19
July 20, 1967
NUMBER 11, PAGE 45a

"Had Enough?"

Editorial

This was the slogan of a national political campaign of a few years ago. It wasn't necessary to explain the question. Everybody knew what it meant have you had your fill of corruption and dishonesty among public officials? Are you tired of huge deficit, spending by big government, or graft and favoritism and ever mounting taxes? Are you fed up with weakness and vacillation and hesitation on vital issue by our national leaders? Are you sick of all the bureaucratic bungling and experimentation with our lives, our schools, our children, our future? In short, have you

"Had Enough?"

We think the question might well be asked now of all our brethren who have been "going along" with the modernistic, liberalistic, social gospel, "no pattern" trend of recent years, and against which some of us have cried out so frequently. At times it seems almost as if we were shouting into the teeth of an onrushing hurricane. The big churches, big schools, big promoters, and "Great Preachers" amongst us simply seemed hell-bent for their course of action. It was go! go!! GO!!! with them all the way. Anybody who dared raise a voice of protest or dissent was "quarantined" if possible; if that was not possible, the dissenter was simply relegated to the Status of an "anti" and ignored and forgotten. Brethren were "On the March"!

Well, a few weeks ago we re-printed Brother Leroy Garrett's "New Look In The Church of Christ" article. It fell like a block-buster into the camp of the liberals. There were apparently scores of thousands of brethren who had had no idea at all as to what was happening; they never dreamed of the extremes to which their own leaders and preachers had already committed themselves. The Garrett article was to these people a terrific shock. We received requests for reprints of the article by the thousands. We had quickly exhausted our reserve supply of Gospel Guardians, so Brother Eugene Britnell reproduced the entire article (along with our editorial) and mailed out a great number of copies. Now we have seen several other bulletins and papers also reproducing the essay. In response to a flood of requests we again run Brother Garret's article and our response to it, And if you haven't "had enough," read on--- In this issue we re-print another article from "Restoration Review" which we believe will be equally shocking (and dismaying) to many brethren in the "on the march" churches. How on earth could "Churches of Christ" be having any serious disturbance over tongue-speaking? they sadly ask. It is as unthinkable as a hot argument over sprinkling or infant baptism! These things simply can not happen to US!

But they do happen; and they are happening. We have made full allowance, of course, for gross exaggeration on the part of both Brother Garrett and Brother Meyers. They are partisans with a cause to promote, an axe to grind. They want to make the traditional "Church of Christ" out as ignorant, obscurantist, and bigoted as possible. How else could they justify themselves in their course? But, making all due allowance for exaggeration and biased reporting, it still must be obvious that an upheaval of monumental proportions is taking place among our liberal brethren. And the end is not in sight - not by many years and by many churches! These "young princes of the church" (as Brother Garrett describes them) are not going to be turned back from their course. They think they have found new truth, a thrilling new doctrine - or, rather, have rediscovered an apostolic doctrine which has been neglected and misunderstood for lo! these many centuries. It is exhilarating to feel that one has at long last discovered something that the wisest and greatest have overlooked and misunderstood!

But, seriously, we want to pose the question to many thousands of simple Christians who are members of these "go-go" churches, have you "Had Enough?" You can see now where the movement is heading; beginning with a simple little thing like the care of a hungry orphan child, (and who on earth could object to that?) the slow process of erosion and "drifting" has finally brought on this "new look, tongue-speaking, denominationalizing Church of Christ." Is THAT what you wanted? Or expected? You longed for "success", of course; we all did, and do. But are we going to buy "success" at the cost of truth?

"But we don't 'go along' with Leroy Garrett and Robert Meyers and all the tongue-speaking, Campus crusading, denominationalizing trend," some brethren protest.

Sure, that's what they SAY; but take a look at what they DO. Do you see them raising a voice of protest in their own churches? Of course not! They meekly submit and keep quiet and acquiesce, and give their money, when their congregation decides to join a "campaign" or turn itself into a "coffee-house" or build a Church of Christ hospital or send pregnant cows to Korea. What they DO thunders so loudly in our ears that it is a bit difficult to hear what they SAY!

Read Brother Meyer's article carefully. He is RIGHT in much of what he says about the political, time-serving attitude of many of the leaders among Churches of Christ. Those thousands of sincere brethren who have been turned out of the church buildings their own money and sacrifice had helped to build because of their opposition to church support of benevolence societies and secular colleges can well attest to the history and prejudice they encountered. But we feel there are still many thousands who are even at this late date capable of being shocked and distressed by the conditions described by Meyers. To all these brethren we pose a simple question,

"Had Enough?"

-F. Y. T.