How They Are Receiving It
"I don't know who is responsible for my getting the Gospel Guardian, but I am grateful to whoever is sending it. I have found many interesting and informative articles in it." "I don't agree with everything I find in your paper, but I must say it is stimulating and provocative of thought." "I appreciate your sending me the Gospel Guardian. I agree with much that is in it, but think some of your writers are missing the point on some things." "I did not subscribe for your paper; I do not read it; I do not want it. I have no time to waste on people who are opposed to church cooperation and who don't believe in caring for orphans. Your paper hits the waste-basket each week without even being opened. Do me a favor and quit cluttering up my mail with it." "I demand to know who is sending the Gospel Guardian to me; I have some things I want to say to that person." "I am highly pleased at receiving the Gospel Guardian. I did not know there was such a paper, contending for the "ancient gospel". May God bless you and give more power to you." "The elders here have instructed the congregation not to read your paper, but to throw it in the waste-basket when it comes. I am disobeying them, as I think they have no right to try to censor what I read. I did not know of the Gospel Guardian until I started getting it." "Is this the paper that has been creating so much fuss and stir? It is certainly not what I had been told it was!"
Thus the comments continue to come in. The Gospel Guardian has more than doubled her circulation since the first of the year — and new lists are coming in constantly. Above we give some of the typical comments that come to us from brethren who are seeing the paper for the first time. The favorable comments run at a ratio of five or six to one — which we think is pretty significant. Because if a man agrees with you, he is far less likely to write you a letter saying so than if he disagrees with you. We are highly pleased and gratified at the general reception being given the paper. We KNOW it is having effect in many places in opening the eyes of honest brethren to what is happening among the churches; and in teaching the way of truth, and encouraging brethren to stand fast in the faith.
We have had comments from friends to the effect that they would like to send the paper to thirty, sixty, or maybe ninety families but just do not know who will read it and who will throw it away. Well, why not follow the course being taken by some others: make a list of every Christian family in your town, or in surrounding towns (all whose names and addresses you can get), and then systematically go through the list, sending the paper for one year to everybody on your list. It may take you two, three, or four years to go through the entire list; but by doing so, you can make it possible for every family to at least be exposed to the truth for a twelve month period.
This battle will not be won or ended within a year, or five years, or ten years. It will take a generation perhaps for the break to become final and recognized and accepted as between the "Social Gospel Churches of Christ" and the rest of us. Nobody can predict with any degree of accuracy this early in the game which way the majority of congregations will finally swing. We can point to a few hundred churches that we are confident will stand firmly for the truth; and we can point to a score or more that we are fairly confident will totally apostatize into the "social gospel" camp; but between these two groups there lie several thousand congregations whose final course is yet to be determined. It is here that the fight for truth and righteousness must be made. And there are a few cities in which faithful brethren have set themselves the task of providing (over the next four or five years) a full year's subscription to the Gospel Guardian to every Christian family in the area.
Some, obviously, are so prejudiced and so biased that they will not read the paper at all. We must take that for granted, and understand that a certain percentage of those receiving the paper will throw it away unread. Some others will read it only to try to find things in it to criticize and censure. Some will read only an article or two occasionally; others will idly glance through it out of sheer curiosity (especially if they are ordered by the elders not to!). And a few — how many we can only conjecture — will be honest enough and sincere enough that they will read an article or two, become a bit interested, and then gradually begin to read and study the issues; and finally be won to the truth.
All of us who love the truth have an obligation to do what we can to uphold it. The Gospel Guardian offers one way, at least, of trying to reach brethren with the truth. It is having an every widening circle of readers, and its plea for brotherly treatment of one another, its fairness in presenting both sides of controversial issues, and its unyielding stand for a "thus saith the Lord" in all matters of worship or practice are gaining it a respect in the eyes of thousands of people who have known the paper only by reputation in the past.
Will YOU help in this campaign? Make up a list of say 150 Christian families in your town or area, send us the names and addresses of thirty of these families, and we will put these thirty on the mailing list and send you a statement for $5.00 each month. At the end of one year, drop those thirty families, and pick up another thirty. Thus in five years you can go through the entire list. Get busy on it NOW! Thanks.
— F. Y. T.