Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 22
December 24, 1970
NUMBER 33, PAGE 3-4a

End - Of - The Year Potpourri

Editorial

No Paper Next Week

Under the terms of our mailing permit, we publish fifty issues of the Gospel Guardian each year. Which means we can elect two weeks in the year for non-publication. They are the first week in July and the last in December. So we wish a Happy New Year to all our family of readers; and we will be back with you on January 7, 1971..

End-Of-The-Year Potpourri

And so ends another year. It has carried its normal burden of successes and failures, of joys and sorrows. But it has been a good year for those who serve the Lord.. . all years are good years for such people! And as we close out 1970, here are a few things we want to share with you:

The O. B. Proctor Letter In 1956, the editor and his family moved from Lufkin, Texas to Abilene. We had formerly lived in Abilene, and worshipped with the College Church of Christ there. On returning to the city after an absence of three years, we began attending the North Park congregation where O. B. Proctor was the preacher. The story of our connection with that church, and O. B. Proctor's courageous and resolute stand for truth under almost unbelievable pressure, is an epic that needs to be told. We have it in mind to include a full chapter on that bit of history when (and if) we get around to writing our "Memoirs" some day.

Anyhow, the letter in this issue is Brother Proctor's reply to a brother in Amarillo who had written him, repeating the old, old, and long since discredited "arguments" Brother Harper once made in defense of Herald of Truth and the institutional orphan homes. Many of our readers may not be able to follow fully the meandering course of the reasoning used to defend the set-up. But we believe a careful reading of Brother Proctor's letter will give you the general idea.

Preachers — Young and Old We also publish in this issue articles by Brother A. M. Cornelius and J. F. Dancer, Jr. relative to the preachers, their work and support. If you think the articles are on different sides of the problem, read them again! So far as we can see, they are in full agreement. . . . but simply approach the problem from different angles. So we just say a hearty "amen" to both articles.

It Was No Meteority!

It was nearly four years ago (March, 1967) that we published Leroy Garrett's article, "New Look In The Church of Christ" which was the first information many brethren had of the tongue-speaking, miracle-working, Pentecostal-Holiness heresy which was beginning to manifest itself among the churches of Christ. The article created shock waves of astonishment and incredulity which are still being felt.

However, subsequent developments have shown that this was indeed no isolated, freakish, once-in-a-lifetime happenstance. For tongue-speaking, miracle-working, and all the attendant phenomena of the "enthusiasts" have cropped up in a number of places in the last four years. It was not a wild meteorite that hit the church in the mid 1960's; but rather the inevitable consequence of a long sad history of inherited religion (meaning a religion without any real foundation in knowledge and understanding of the scripture) plus an overwhelming infatuation with "Success." Brethren who had inherited their religion were tired of being looked down upon as "second-class," narrow-minded, and "from across the tracks" Christians. They wanted to move up-town, and take their place as a truly aggressive, up-and-coming, popular and growing religious group. The Herald of Truth promotion was an idea "whose time had come!" It was seized upon, and along with it came a score of other promotions and projects — all of them designed to demonstrate to the whole world how tremendously strong and growing was the "Church of Christ."

We doubt that few (if any) of the promoting brethren were at all conscious of such motivations. On the contrary, they were fully persuaded that this was all done to the glory of God and the salvation of the souls of men.. . But the over-weening ambition to make a name in the religious world led to the trampling under foot of some of the most obvious (and hitherto deeply cherished) of Biblical teachings concerning the congregation. Concerning also the place and value of "Bible authority."

Adding the whole mess together ("mess" is right) we finally came up with such freakish brethren as Ketcherside, Garrett, Meyers, and Boone — and others (many others, we predict!) to follow.

No, it was no meteorite that hit; it was the logical fruit of false attitudes and false teaching.

— F. Y. T.