Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 22
September 10, 1970
NUMBER 18, PAGE 4-5a

More On Pat Boone And The Gift Of Tongues

Editorial

We had thought to let the sad case of Brother Pat Boone and his incredible fall into Pentecostalism drop from the pages of this journal. Men make shipwreck of the faith in every generation, and however saddened we may be by the fact, there is little to be gained by a constant repetition of the tragic story. However, when we received the article from Brother Bales (which we publish in this issue) we felt a change of heart in the matter. From Brother Bales' article it would appear that Boone had "experienced" his conversion to Pentecostalism quite a while back, but had deliberately kept quiet about it, deceiving the brethren as to his true convictions, in the hope that he could present his story in the most dramatic and effective way possible in a new book. It was obviously his hope that many thousands of brethren might thus be favorably drawn to Pentecostalism, and that the "tongue-speakers" might be greatly multiplied among the churches of Christ.

Boone believes that the Holy Spirit guided him to employ this sort of deceit. He feels no sense of guilt about the deception, but truly thinks he was serving God in concealing his change from his brethren until he could present it in the most favorable light possible. When Brother Bales sent the article to the Gospel Guardian, he wrote the editor:

"Since you and I hold to a common authority — the Bible — it is possible for us to work out our differences; but if brethren accept Pentecostalism, they have abandoned the sufficiency of the Scriptures and we no longer have this common ground with them."

We are happy to have the article from James Bales. It reveals some interesting sidelights on the case. We are amazed that Brother Boone would allow his attorneys to threaten legal action to prevent publication of excerpts from the letters he had written to Bales. Either the attorneys are astonishingly naive (which we doubt), or else they hoped Bales would be naive enough to be frightened by their threat. The letters in question were Bales' property (not Boone's); and the courts have long since held that the writer of a letter loses all rights as to its use once he has dropped it in the mail to another person.

The "Pentecostal" threat among the brethren who make up the readers of the Gospel Guardian is as remote today as it was among all of the churches thirty years ago. For readers of this journal generally hold as tenaciously as ever to the authority and all-sufficiency of the Word of God. The bitter battle over the Herald of Truth, benevolent organizations, unauthorized cooperative combines, and a whole host of other innovations has served to strengthen, rather than to weaken, their faith and confidence in the revealed word. Brother Bales knows that this strong and formerly unanimous stance has been seriously compromised among many thousands of the brethren who support and defend these institutions and practices. He is concerned about it, and a great many others are as well. With the tremendous buildup given to Pat Boone through the last twenty years, with his being featured in college lectureships, in huge rallies of all sorts, in great evangelistic campaigns, and being in a very real way held up to a whole generation of young Christians as a shining example of dedicated Christian youth, his defection from the faith can have a tremendous impact in drawing many thousands into his same error.

Brother Boone, obviously, was not "rooted and grounded" in the faith. He did not understand what the church is, what the gospel is, nor what it means to have respect for the word of God. We opine that James Bales and many others like him are going to be sick at heart when they begin to realize just how great an influence the "promotions" of these past twenty years have had in undermining and weakening the traditional respect for the word of God among Churches of Christ. Our brethren have become intoxicated with the idea of "success" — big crowds, big promotions, big projects, big publicity. How well do we recall the pride with which one ardent supporter of Herald of Truth (now departed — peace to his ashes) proclaimed that, "Now, the governments of the earth will have to sit up and take notices that the Churches of Christ are to be reckoned with!" He felt that the existence of such a program as Herald of Truth would give the churches more "muscle" in requesting protection for gospel preachers in Italy and elsewhere; and that congress and the President would be "impressed" with the political and voting power of such a "successful" people as we were!

Using Pat Boone to attract the crowds for evangelistic meetings was a bit of "worldly wisdom" cut from the same piece of cloth. Ditto famous athletes, business tycoons (remember Billie Sol?) politicians, and movie stars. It is the gospel (not glamour) which is God's power to save. A whole generation of "promoting" Christians lost sight of that fact. And now comes the inevitable reaping of what has been sown.

We most earnestly hope that the tragedy of Pat Boone, and however many thousands he may take with him into Pentecostalism, will awaken sincere brethren to the folly of trying to win men through carnal appeals. And we are in full sympathy with James Bales' conviction that the teaching of God's word is the only and proper solution to the problem. We do believe that Brother Bales has a deep respect and reverence for the authority of the Scriptures. His defense of such projects as Herald of Truth would grow out of what we sincerely believe to be his misapplication of Bible authority — not a denial of it. For that reason we welcome this article from him, and gladly give it space in spite of its length. We have another from him, in sequel to this one, which will deal more directly and specifically with the Scripture teaching on this matter of the direct operation of the Holy Spirit. It will appear within the next week or two.

— F. Y. T.