Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 9
June 27, 1957
NUMBER 9, PAGE 8

Thomas B. Warren's Accusation Against G. K. Wallace --- No. 1

Cecil B. Douthitt, Brownwood, Texas

The elders of the Highland church in Abilene, Texas, are circulating a brochure which they call, "That The Brethren May Know", issued in 1954 in defense of the Herald of Truth Missionary Society". The booklet contains a chapter by G. K. Wallace on "How Congregations May Co-Operate", in which Brother Wallace says, "There is a parallel between an orphans' home that has a board of trustees other than the elders of the church to do the work of the church, and the United Christian Missionary Society".

In the Gospel Advocate of May 16, 1957, Brother Thomas B. Warren says, "Further, it is clear that even those who profess to see such a parallel do not actually believe the homes are parallel with the Missionary Society. When this fact is seen, the cry of opposers (The home are parallel with the Missionary Society) will have lost what little weight it had with thinking men."

Brother Warren has a reputation for making statements when he apparently does not realize what he is saying. He has floated around in the nebulous of his "total situation" and "component parts" until he obviously cannot understand his own language. Therefore, I doubt that he realizes that he has accused G. K. Wallace of lying, and has declared unto the readers of the Gospel Advocate that "when this fact is seen" (the "fact" that men like G. K. Wallace do not believe what they "profess" to believe) his cry "will have lost what little weight it had with thinking men."

Brother G. K. Wallace professed "to see such parallel", and stated as plainly as any man can state anything that "there is" such a parallel. But Tom Warren says that Wallace and others who have made such a statement, or professed "to see such a parallel" did not "believe" what they professed and declared. Therefore, G. K. Wallace and all others who professed "to see such a parallel" lied because they professed to believe something which they did not believe; and according to Tom, Brother G. K. Wallace's contention regarding the parallelism will lose its weight with "thinking men", if Tom can just show them the "fact" that G. K. and others made a statement which they themselves "do not actually believe".

Brother Tom Warren's contention in the Advocate article is not that G. K. Wallace's statement is untrue, and the burden of his effort is not an attempt to prove that it is not true; his accusation is that G. K. Wallace did not "believe" that "there is a parallel between an orphans' home" and the Missionary Society when he made the statement. That is the thing that he calls "this fact", and his entire article is devoted to making his readers see "his fact" so-called. In every paragraph of his one and a half column article, he reiterates the fact that this is the burden of his contention. In the first paragraph he says, "Further, it is clear that even those who profess to see such a parallel do not actually believe the homes are parallel with the Missionary Society"; in the second paragraph he says, "They themselves know that the homes and the Missionary Society are not parallel". Therefore, G. K. Wallace and all others who have said they are parallel know that they lied when they said it, according to Tom, for he says "They themselves know that the homes and the Missionary Society are not parallel!"

In his third paragraph Tom says, "They admit the homes and the Missionary Society are not parallel!" In the fourth paragraph he repeats, "They admit the homes among us and the Missionary Society are not parallel!" In his fifth paragraph he proclaims the same thing with his usual exclamation point: "They admit that the homes among us and the Missionary Society are not parallel!" On and on through his article he goes repeating his vehement utterance, and punctuating it with an exclamation mark. (!)

Brother G. K. Wallace is one of the "even those" who professed to see a parallel "between an orphans' home that has a board of trustees other than the elders of the church to do the work of the church, and the United Christian Missionary Society". Did G. K. Wallace, a staff writer for the Gospel Advocate, believe that statement at the time he made it? Tom Warren says he did not What does Brother G. K. say about it? What does he think about Tom's accusation? Does he have enough self-respect left to resent Tom's insult? Or, does he admit that he did not believe his own words when he uttered them?

Regardless of how G. K. Wallace, a staff writer of the Gospel Advocate, may feel about Brother Warren's accusation of duplicity, and regardless of what he would like to do about it, I think he knows there are two things which he cannot do in the columns of the Advocate for which he is a staff writer; (1) he cannot reply to Tom's charges; (2) he cannot even remotely indicate that he believes "there is a parallel between an orphans' home that has a board of trustes other than the elders of the church to do the work of the church, and the United Christian Missionary Society". If he should insist on trying to prove that proposition in the Advocate I think he knows what the editor would do to him. If he does not know, Brother Roy Lanier can tell him. But-of course, G. K. knows what happened to Lanier when he tried to teach in the Advocate, for which he too was a staff writer, that such an orphan home as described by G. K. is unscriptural, and cannot be defended.

Though I do not agree with Brother Roy Lanier, and have written a series of articles in the Gospel Guardian in refutation of his brand of centralized control, yet I admire his courage and self-respect in shaking the Advocate dust off his feet and joining Reuel Lemmons and the Firm Foundation and there exposing the Advocate "policy" for what it really is. Now, since Tom Warren has been given space in the Advocate for his insulting article on what G. K. Wallace professed "to see", what will G. K, do? Will he manifest as much courage and self-respect as Roy Lanier manifested? What a lack of courage can do to a man's self-respect is appalling!

More will be said in a later article about this three-sided battle currently waged by the three most prominent segments of the centralization promoters as represented by the Firm Foundation, Boles Home News and the Gospel Advocate. But at this time I only want to ask this question: If I decide to change, which of these three groups should I join?