Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 19
February 15, 1968
NUMBER 40, PAGE 5c-6

K-A-L-E-I-D-O-S-C-O-P-E

Fanning Yater Tant

Preachers must pay. On January 2 the President signed a bill making it mandatory for ALL "ordained ministers" to participate in the Social Security program as self-employed persons. The rate for 1968 is 6.4 per cent of taxable income up to $7,800.00. This means you may be paying as much as $500.00 over and above your normal income taxes. Some congregations (not nearly enough, I would guess) will be picking up the tab for the local preacher.

Losing ground. Membership in the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) dropped by more than 19,000 during the year 1967. Contributions were at an all-time peak, however. As the sound of splashing water in the baptistery diminishes, the clink of coins (soft rustle of checks and bills, more likely, to the tune of $109 million) swells perceptibly. Money talks, all right, but it hasn't been very persuasive in talking folks into the Christian Churches lately.

He was tops! My father, J.D. Tant, never had much formal schooling. But there was one scholastic or academic discipline where he out-shone the most highly educated men of his generation. Many a college professor wrote to J.D. Tant asking his help in this matter. Tant always responded by having his wife write (in her beautifully legible hand) the answer to the professor's problem. And what was the problem? It arose when the professor had received a hand-written letter from J.D. Tant, of which he could make neither heads nor tails. Tant could read it easily — and did. And had "the gentle Nannie" copy it and return it to the enquirer. At reading his own handwriting he was the best in the world.

Modern kids. In a "Letter to the Editor" of a local newspaper one troubled parent wrote in the other day asking what to do with her ten-year-old daughter. The father had really lowered the boom on the little darling for her oft repeated transgressions. The culprit took it all in stony silence, then stamped off to the book-case and pulled out a volume of the Encyclopedia. She sat engrossed in this volume for so long a time that her father finally couldn't resist stealing up behind her and looking over her shoulder to see what she was reading. The article was entitled "Poisons."

Quote from Paul. "We talk about free enterprise and vote for Santa Claus. Expecting something from government is like giving yourself a transfusion from your right arm to your left. Only when you involve a bureaucrat, he's liable to spill half of it." Paul said it. Paul Harvey, that is. The earlier Paul said, "Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." Eph. 4:28.

Standing in the need of prayer? A recent clipping tells that the Montgomery County, Maryland, council switched from prayers to silent meditation at the opening of its meetings - because it usually took the county clerk one to three hours each week to find a clergyman willing to pray for them!

Remember Pearl? Remember Pearl Birch, the 200-pound ex-convict nurse who married the late A. Otis Birch (95 years old at the time) less than a month after his first wife died? Pearl claimed to be a member of the Church of Christ, and got Joe Laird, gospel preacher in Altus, Oklahoma, to do the honors when she married the senile helpless Birch. Last fall the court in Dallas, Texas, awarded Birch's multi-million dollar estate to Pearl, denying it to five California Baptist institutions to which Birch had left it in an earlier will. The Baptists say Birch was mentally incompetent when he wrote the second will leaving everything to Pearl; they have appealed the decision. All of which adds up to the simple fact that a man ought to do with his money what he wants to do with it while he is still alive enough to know what he is doing — and to enjoy it! What credit can the Lord give a man for hanging onto his money till the last, lingering gasp of life is rattling in his throat, and then (when he can get not one split second's further use of it) giving it to some church or to some institution?

J.F. Kurfees' ambition. Which reminds me of something J.F. Kurfees said to me one time. He was talking about men dying and leaving their estates to churches, schools, hospitals, etc. He said, "I would tremble with fear to stand before the Lord in judgment having left a huge fortune for others to use or misuse. I earned the money during my lifetime; and I think the Lord wants me to use it during my life time. I want to see my children set up and earning their own way in life; leave my wife enough to take care of her in her old age, and then have just enough left to pay my current bills and bury me. I brought nothing into this world, and I'd like to leave it having used every dollar I earned to the good of humanity and the cause of Christ. I want to use it while I live and can have some say in how it is spent."

Another "Special" coming up. Brother Joe Ed Furr of Longview, Texas has secured the help of a number of brethren who are particularly talented in the field of "church music," and has prepared material for a Special Issue of the Gospel Guardian. It will appear late in March. Every congregation could profit by putting this number into the hands of every family. It will improve the singing, and give a new insight into what it means to worship the Lord "in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs." Price of this issue will be 20 cents per copy in lots of less than 100; and 15 cents per copy for lots of 100 or more.

"The true Mesopotamia ring". It was George Whitfield, the 18th century British preacher, who gave vogue to the word "Mesopotamia." It was said of him that he could reduce an audience to tears merely by the studied emphasis he gave to the way he pronounced each syllable — with feeling and pathos! This gave rise to the expression "the true Mesopotamia ring," meaning an utterance with more ring than reason, more sound than sense. The kind you often hear in political campaigns — and in some "campaigns" of a different sort.

"Doublethink". closely allied to "the true Mesopotamia ring" is "doublethink." This means holding two opposing opinions at the same time, and being unaware of the contradiction. We have a considerable army of "doublethinkers" in the Lord's church today. This is not to be confused with the "double-minded man" of James' description. That man was wavering and uncertain, jumping from one position to another. The doublethink man firmly and confidently holds both positions (contrary to each other) at the same time. He may be a man who is "often in error, but never in doubt."

F. Y. T.