Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 20
April 24, 1969
NUMBER 50, PAGE 4-5a

End Of Volume Twenty

Editorial

With this issue we bring to a close twenty full years as editor of the Gospel Guardian. They have been hectic (but happy) years; we look forward with keen anticipation and confidence to the next twenty. There are few "odds and ends" we need to talk about, and this is a good time to do it:

The Index

This issue carries an index of all major articles for the past twelve months. The making of such a file is a time consuming and laborious task. The thanks of all of us go to Jefferson David Tant, Atlanta, Georgia, for his work in providing this table.

Brother Garrett's Article

Brother Leroy Garrett writes us a personal letter to correct the statement in his article (which we reprinted) that 12,000 young people gathered at Dallas last Christmas Week for the "Campus Evangelism" seminar. The number should have been 1200, not 12,000! Brother Garrett also feels some slight peeve at us for having republished his article without having "written or called for permission to use the article in some way. I am sorry that you feel no ethical responsibility along these lines...Since editors do not do this as a common practice, I take it that you have one moral standard for the loyal and another for heretics like myself."

Cool it, brother! Every editor we have ever heard of (including Brother Garrett) accepts it as "common practice" to lift quotations, or even whole articles, from exchange journals, being careful, of course, to give due credit for the source of the material. That is one purpose for the exchange of journals. Every editor naturally desires as wide a circulation as possible for his writings; otherwise, why would he write at all? If our good brother feels a bit of annoyance over the matter, it should be directed at our comments — not at the re-publishing of his article.

But, even so, in spite of the slight unhappiness he may feel, he still loves us, and closes with "But, with all this, be assured of my deep personal regards, and do visit with me when in these parts. I am now teaching Negroes at Bishop College and find it a great challenge." We do indeed feel that Brother Garrett fits the New Testament definition of an "heretic," but we seek to "count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." And, to tell the truth, we get a considerable pleasure out of reading his "Restoration Review." He is so completely honest — and so completely mistaken!


Our Greatest Enemy

Somebody asked us the other day what we regarded as "the greatest enemy" the Lord's church will face in the next twenty years. It did not take long to give an answer. The greatest enemy the Lord's church will face in the 1970's and 1980's is precisely the enemy she has faced for nearly two millennia — secularism. In one generation that secularism may manifest itself as it did in pagan Rome with a hedonistic philosophy of satisfying fleshly, sensual appetites; in another generation it may surface as an inordinate and unrealistic emphasis on "learning" as in the Renaissance; still another age may find secularism blossoming forth as a sort of messianic compulsion to 'make the world safe for democracy' or some other such utopian dream.

Let no one for a moment misread or misinterpret "the social gospel;" it is simply and purely a "this-worldly" aim and objective. Its specific aims may, indeed, be worthy and exalted — the relief of poverty, overcoming handicaps of the underprivileged, the promotion of good working conditions, etc. — but it has no interest whatever in anything beyond the grave. That the Lord's church will increasingly be confronted with "the social gospel" drive we think is inevitable. Along with it, of course, goes the twin philosophy of classical modernism, meaning a denial of the super-natural in religion.

Not orphan homes, not centralized cooperative arrangements, not 'Herald of Truth' pretensions to speak for "the Churches of Christ," but secularism, coupled with (in fact, growing out of) modernism, this is the threat we face. And it will come not in a matter of generations, but within a few years.


Our "Peace Offensive"

Our "peace offensive" with our institutional brethren is getting pretty exciting. We are meeting with a highly encouraging response to our overtures toward a better understanding. We seek to make it crystal clear in every encounter and meeting with them that there can be NO COMPROMISE of conviction, and not one inch of retreat from our unyielding opposition to human institutions which are set up to do the work of the church — but, having said that, we ask them if they are interested in exploring other possible areas where we might associate and help one another? Invariably, they are! The atmosphere is much more cordial than it was a year or two ago. By the generous help of many thousands of our readers we hope to put the Gospel Guardian into ten to twenty thousand NEW homes these next few months — homes of people who have not hitherto read the Guardian, who are members of the Lord's church, and who have expressed a willingness to receive the paper and give serious thought to what we are trying to advocate. Beginning within the next few months we are going to set forth some "specifics" looking toward a degree of association, and eventually full fellowship with the brethren from whom we have become increasingly estranged these last fifteen or twenty years. if you have not sent your "Yes, I Will Help" card yet, this is a good time to do it.

And so we close out Volume Twenty.. Next week we will start a new year for the Gospel Guardian; it promises to be one of the best we have ever known. We will have some interesting things to report before the summer is ended.

F. Y. T.