New Readers
We are pleased this week to send this issue of the Gospel Guardian to a new list of 12,000 names — the entire mailing list of 'The Contender". By the generous cooperation of Brother Charles Holt the 12,000 people who receive his paper will receive this one issue of the Gospel Guardian. We are hopeful that many of them will be interested enough to subscribe. Brother Holt has a word on that subject in his "News and Views" column this week. Read it
Our "gift subscription" clubs continue to grow at an accelerated pace. Send us the names and addresses of thirty people who are interested enough in the truth to read the paper; we will put them on the mailing list, and then bill you for $5.00 per month. They will continue to receive the paper for as long as you feel you want them to have it.
Dr. Thomas And The "Social Gospel"
In keeping with our policy of "letting both sides be heard" we are once again happy to bring an article from a representative brother whose views differ from ours on current issues. We particularly appreciate this article from Dr. J. D. Thomas of the Abilene Christian College Bible faculty for he is one of the few (the very, very few — Dr. J. W. Roberts is another) on "the other side" who seriously attempts to make an appeal to the Bible in defense of some things now so widely under fire among the brethren. In our judgment both of the good doctors are about as far astray exegetically as it is possible for men to go while still claiming to take the Bible seriously, but at least they do make the effort to justify their positions by the scriptures. And that is far, far better than most of the others who write and speak in behalf of these questionable things.
We are particularly appreciative of Dr. Thomas' strictures on the use of "loaded" phrases and terms. For several years now the air has been filled with screamed epithets of "anti-orphan home," "anti-cooperation" "anti-radio preaching," etc., which obviously do not deal fairly with the position of brethren who are "anti-church institutional orphan homes", and "anti-centralized control cooperation".
If we used the term "social gospel" in reference to certain brethren today in the same way "anti-orphan" is being used, we would indeed feel guilty and under necessity of making correction. "Anti-orphan" is used by brethren who are perfectly aware that not a Christian on earth is "anti-orphan", and who are aware that the orphan children who are being cared for in Christian homes out number those being cared for in the institutional homes by a ratio of perhaps twenty to one. To call a man "anti orphan" simply because he had rather care for an orphan child in his own home than to send him off to an institution he considers unscriptural is nonsense. "Anti-orphan" is exactly the kind of "loaded" language Dr. Thomas is condemning.
But we have used the phrase "social gospel" with reference to a type of thinking now developing among the churches of Christ because we honestly believe that is the proper designation for what we are talking about. It is the attitude of mind and heart which (not in theory but in practice, gives first place to the things for which the "social gospel" stands — youth camps rehabilitation centers, orphan homes, Christian colleges, church "fellowship halls" and recreation centers, and all the multitude of this-worldly activities which are characteristic of that kind of emphasis. Dr. Thomas protests that he personally is as deeply concerned about sin, heaven, and eternal salvation as the next person. And we do not question that, of course. But we do emphasize that the direction of 'social gospel" thinking is toward this present world, rather than toward the world to come. And we do repeat that a "this worldly" thinking is developing among the brethren for whom Dr. Thomas is spokesman. Can anyone deny it?
Are the church ball teams, the church supported recreational centers, the church banquet halls (to use Dr. Roberts' suggested title for them), the church organized and operated benevolent institutions, the church supported colleges indicative of supreme interest in the next life, or are they not clearly concerned with this present world! This whole "social craze" which has taken hold of the churches within the last two decades (mostly since World War II) is but a part of the general unrest of world civilization. At the very time when Christian people could most profitably emphasize that God's kingdom is "not of this world", many of our brethren are simply going wild over the old, old techniques and activities which sectarianism has had for two or three generations — and which the most spiritually minded of the denominationalists have long since deplored and desired to abandon. They have found, however, that it is much like an alcoholic trying to give up the bottle. Their churches have been nurtured and fed on such social activities; and now they cannot exist without them.
The Christian Church (Digressive) is a splendid example of what we mean. They brought in their piano, their Ladies' Aid societies, their social activities to hold and attract the people. And now it is a recognized fact that these poor people are probably the most spiritually destitute of any of the leading denominations in our nation! Baptists and Presbyterians, as a rule, are markedly superior to them in both conviction and conscience.
Dr. Thomas has a good point when he asks that some brother undertake to refute his arguments, one by one, and show the fallacy of his reasoning. That is precisely what this journal proposes to do. Brother Roy E. Cogdill has prepared a series of articles which will deal with Dr. Thomas' book, "We Be Brethren", and will point out, line by line and page by page, how the good professor has departed from correct Biblical interpretation, and has become ensnared, bogged down, and hopelessly enmeshed in some of the most obvious and glaring errors of both logic and Scripture. We have been delaying publication of the articles to permit their being read by a greater number of brethren; the circulation of the Guardian has rather sky-rocketed within the last few weeks, and we have hesitated to publish Cogdill's review while so many hundreds of new subscriptions were being processed. Publication time is very close, however; and we urge all brethren who are interested in these vital matters to check your address label and make sure your subscription is paid up.
You will not want to miss Brother Cogdill's fine review of Dr. Thomas's book