Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 9
July 18, 1957
NUMBER 11, PAGE 13

The Overflow

F. Y. T.

Bible Bulwarks

The fine little paper of the above name, ably edited these last two years by Brother James P. Needham, has now been taken over by the Gospel Guardian. All those who have unexpired time left on your subscription for Bible Bulwarks will now receive this journal in its stead. We welcome you into our family of readers. Brother Needham and those associated with him in his journal will be writing as usual, except that their articles will be found in Gospel Guardian. We hope you enjoy the things you find here.

Jesse James

Leave it to the Texans! You can be sure they will come up with the biggest, bestest, and wildest of all. And what could be more appropriate than to have a State Treasurer named — Jesse James! That's right, podnuh; and just park your shootin' irons over there by the fence, and lay your money on the line — tax money, that is.

Cigarette smoking

We've never been quite as able as some to get hysterical over the moral issue of smoking cigarettes, but we can get plenty exercised over the increasing, overwhelming, and incontrovertible accumulating factual evidence of the evil physical effects of tobacco. Latest reports of the American Cancer Society, released last month after a four year study of some 188,000 individuals, show conclusively that there is a correlation between cigarette smoking and life expectancy — and that the habitual heavy smoker shortens flis life by perhaps as much as seven to eight years. Think it over, puffers!

"Church of Christ rats"

What has happened to the "chinchilla craze" that swept the country a few years ago? So many gospel preachers began to raise these little varmints as a side-line that the Baptist people over in East Texas got to referring to the beasts as "Church of Christ rats!" But it looks like this get-rich-quick bubble has sort of burst — and perhaps that is good. Now the brethren can get their mind back to gospel preaching, and forget the rodents for a while.

The Unitarians

The Unitarians have at last decided they are no longer willing to be referred to as: a "Christian" people, but declared in a resolution at their 132nd annual meeting in June: "It is our desire to encourage all religious liberals, whether Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Confucianist, Hindu, Moslem or others, to unite with us." Their monthly magazine, "Christian Register" will drop the word "Christian" from its title and be henceforth known as the "Unitarian Register". Harvard is the intellectual seat of this humanistic philosophy, masquerading as a religion. A doctorate from Harvard should be a warning to every one that the man earning such a degree is in all probability a man's whose faith has been weakened, and who will teach "liberalism" as he has opportunity. It is the settled conviction of the Harvard faculty that any man who can complete their work toward a doctorate and still retain his fundamentalism is "not creative" in his thinking, and is not of "doctorate caliber" intellectually. Phooey! Maybe a man can complete the course unscarred; but he bears watching.

Where is God?

"It may not be new, but whether new or not, it is worthy of being repeated to our readers, the beautiful reply of a little lad to an English bishop, who said to him one day: "If you can tell me where God is, I'll give you an orange.' Without a moment's hesitation the lad responded, 'If you can tell me where he is not, I'll give you two!' Better than all logic was the simple faith of this trusting child."

— Harper's Magfazine, 1852

A note from Japan

"When I left Japan in, 1953 there were no self supporting churches here, even though our brethren had been preaching in this country for years. TQLIZY the Yoyogi-Haehiman church of Christ is self-supporting, paying its own preacher and a preacher they have working in

another area. They have over 10 attend worship every Lords' Day.

This is by far the strongest church of our brethren in Japan. One of the greatest reasons for its strength is that it is following the Biblical example of church finances and government. When we depend on American dollars to pay native preachers and other financial obligations in any foreign church, the growth of that church is limited to the amount of American dollars they

receive. Paul accepted support for himself and the work he was doing, but he never asked that native preachers be paid by foreign money." — Bob Nichols, Tokyo, Japan

Orphan homes

"There is no place for charitable organizations in the work of the church. It is the only charitable organization that the Lord authorizes or that is needed to do the work the Lord expects his people to do."

— Guy N. Woods (1946)

No time for hate

There is no time for hate, 0 wasteful friend.

Put hate away until the ages end. Have you an ancient wound? Forget the wrong

Out in my West a forest loud with song

Towers high and green over a field of snow

Over a glacier buried far below. — Edwin Markham

Extremes

It is a sad but true comment that only rarely will a brother leave the "anti" position without becoming an extreme liberal, promoter, and "all-out" institutionalist. It is a swinging from one radical position to the other. And now we have word that Brother Leroy Garrett is no longer convinced that instrumental music should be any test of fellowship, and thinks that "each congregation should settle the question for itself". That way there will be no violation of congregational autonomy! No comment.