News And Views
Christian Education
Well meaning brethren are seizing upon "Christian Education" as the medium which will guarantee the best education for their children in the formative and problem beset period of adolesence. Increasing numbers of "Christian Schools" are being established and projected on the above assumption. Any move which affects our children is worthy of careful study on our part and one which can affect the church, too, is worthy of our additional study.
The expression, Christian Education, very much in vogue among our brethren has came to mean but one thing as a rule — a secular education received in a Christian environment. In a more accurate usage, however, Christian education means one in which the learning itself would be permeated with the teaching of Christ. This suggests, then, emphasis upon the learning and not upon some specially prepared environment. Further, if the Christian learning is the paramount object, why is not all the requisite Christian environment found in the home?
Christian parents teach their children the principles of Christ and maintain as necessary for their own discipleship as well as the spiritual nourishment of their offspring a Christian home. Children thus reared are prepared to consider their associations and their intellectual growth from the perspective that Christianity in Word and in deed affords them. There is no substitute arrangement for this. Now the question — is it expedient to supplement the above by establishing and supporting a "Christian School"? Let us investigate.
Public education, tracing its development back to even the early Colonial Period, has all the advantages of prior establishment, experience, resources, and tested product. Schools operated by our brethren cannot possibly challenge the standards of the Public Schools in these areas. So we must conclude in respect to these factors that "our" schools are and will be second rate or inferior. Do we desire a second rate education for our children? In an age education for survival, for space, and for what else only time will reveal, do we propose to send our children out with inadequate preparation?
Public education in America has brought an awareness and an appreciation for religious freedom. It defends religious freedom and thus serves the Christian by presenting an environment in which he is able to worship and teach others the Truth. Are so-called church and religious schools noted for their achievements along this line? Would schools operated by us be different in this respect?
How well can our brethren support both public and private education? By taxation they must support the public system of education. By gift they propose to support the private school. If the brethren, however, are adequately supporting any school or college now operated by brethren, such is news to me! If such schools are adequately supported, why are all the present back-door efforts being made by many of them to get into the Lord's treasury in the churches? Historically, we have done an inferior work in the South in maintaining a dual public school system and now our brethren, in effect, propose to continue the same dual system.
An emotional approach to this matter blinds our brethren to the costs of a good education. Property must be bought; buildings erected; maintenance staff and funds provided; administrator and faculty assembled. Equipment for labs, library and gym must be secured. All of this is initial. It goes on and its demands increase year after year. A number of school situations indicate that brethren have not established them with a real blueprint for success. Rather, they have listened to a number of promotional and emotional speeches and then they "dived in." An honest factual survey of schools operated by our brethren on the secondary and even college level will indicate such problems and inadequacies as will make wise men pause before they involve themselves in similar situations.
My own chief reason, however, for opposing such schools on the primary and secondary level is my concern for the Gospel and the commission to preach it worldwide. All these school systems regardless of their success require large sums of money to operate. This money in large part must come from Christians and, therefore, cannot go into preaching. Children can receive a good education without "our" schools, but the world cannot be saved without the Truth. The preaching of the Gospel is suffering today from the competition of so many institutional appeals. Schools simply add to the number.
Brethren have and are demonstrating their capacity to organize many personal enterprises and then fasten them as leeches on the churches when they tire or become unable to support them any longer. There is no reason to believe the situation will be any different in regard to "Christian Education." Many colleges are making their plans to get church support. How can the elementary and secondary schools fail to follow the same course?
Brethren, human institutionalism is foreign to the New Testament. It is detrimental to the church of Christ. It has even been a sin against the Lord and whatever form it may now or in the future take, it will continue to be a sin. Let us esteem the spiritual heritage of our children free from human institutions our first concern, and if we do, we must oppose the type of Christian education so much in vogue.
— John O. Dillingham, Columbia, Tenn. "Desanctification Of A Saint (?)"
TIME, April 28, 1961, reports that Pope John XXIII has "eliminated St. Philomena" as an "Agent in Heaven" because "for decades scholars have been skeptical" about her existence. You see, "St. Philomena" was "discovered" on May 24, 1802, in the catacomb of St. Priscilla on Rome's Via Saleria Nova "as the skeleton of a 13 to 15-year old girl with a badly fractured skull." They "assumed she was a virgin," a glass phial containing "the remains of what was assumed to have been blood, together with certain symbols (two anchors, three arrows, a palm and a flower or torch), was interpreted by archaeologists as proof that the remains were those of a martyr." Then in 1837 the Infallible (?) Pope Gregory XVI authorized her public veneration and established her feast day, and in 1855 another so-called infallible pope, Pius IX, approved a Mass and office for "St. Philomena."
The other day, while relaxed in the back seat of his black limousine, Richard Cardinal Cushing, Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, got around to reading the newspaper and learned that "St. Phitomena" had been "eliminated" by "papa John." No doubt the Cardinal was shocked within an inch of his life to read in the newspaper that the "dear little saint" wasn't in heaven as an agent after all. You see, the Cardinal was on his way to dedicate a Catholic church in the little town of Dover to "St. Philomena." As Riley would say, "What a revolting development" for the archbishop this must have been.
Oh well, I suppose Pope John XXIII had a right to "desanctify" a skeleton, be it male or female, if he so desired. After all, surely one pope can "desanctify" the blunders and mistakes of another (infallible?) pope. But, why stop with "eliminating" just one of their "Saints" — Agents an Heaven — because scholars have been skeptical. True Bible scholars have known from the beginning that Catholic claims are all "lying wonders." — Oaks Gowen
Are You Entertained By Sin?
Movies Occupy A Major Role In The American Way Of Life. Millions Of Dollars Are Spent Annually In Their Production; Millions More Are Spent By The Public That Views Them. Movies Are A Powerful Tool. Sometimes They Are Used For Propaganda Purposes. Rarely Are They Used For Educational Or Beneficial Purposes. Primarily They Are Presented As "Entertainment." Motion Picture Companies Are Concerned, Above All Considerations, With How Much Money They Will Bring.
Movies exercise, whether calculated or incidental, a tremendous influence upon the people of America, especially upon the young people. The kind of movies being produced is a commentary on America as a nation. The amount of time and money that an individual spends tor movies and the kind of movies he sees are an index to his character.
For some time it seemed that the morals of the Hollywood clan were lower than most of the movies they produced. Surely that is no longer true — not because Hollywood's morals are any better, but because almost all restraint in responsibility and censorship has been removed. Television dealt a great set-back to the motion picture industry. Theater customers fell off to such an extent that some movie production companies went broke and hundreds of theaters were forced to close. But Hollywood was far from dead. It decided to go all out to entice all of the business it could get. The diet it has since been trying to feed the people is one of the most shameful spectacles of this century. In many pictures partially or entirely nude bodies are displayed; fornication, adultery, child-birth out of wedlock, prostitution, incest, seduction, rape and even homosexuality are dramatized. Some of the shockers of yesteryear are far surpassed by the common run of today. The obscene, the sensual, the vulgar are daily advertised from movie billboards. (Read Gal. 5:19-21; 1Cor. 6:9-10 and Rom. 1:24-30) "Adult entertainment" is the caption used both to entice old and young to "come to the movies" and, to justify any depths of shameful display. The producers and distributors of these salacious movies are quick to hide under the veil of "freedom of speech."
Consider the following captions from movie advertisements of recent years: Naughty New Orleans" (accompanied by a picture of a burlesque girl of Bourbon St.), "delightful adult entertainment;" 'The delinquents," "the baby faces who have just taken their first stumbling step down Sin Street, U.S.A.;" "Shotgun" (accompanied by a picture of a man with a shotgun and a nude woman trying to cover herself), "Wanton gunman and trail town Jezebel evilly mated in a torrid adventure that strips down to raw savagery!"; "The Girl in the Bikini," "a revealing episode on a lonely island;" "The Blue Angel," "She was everything he had been taught to scorn;" "A Woman Like Satan," "Here's the part of Bardot you haven't seen yet;" "The Bramble Bush," "From the best-seller that makes Peyton Place read like a book of nursery rhymes;" "Eighteen and Anxious" (accompanied by a picture of an unwed mother); "Private Property," "the boldest story of planned seduction ever to scald the screen;" "Butterfield 8" (for this story of a call-girl, a teen-agers' screen idol won an Oscar). Only last week a local drive-in offered a double feature: "The Nature Camp Story" (the story of a nudist camp) and "Female Fiends." These are just a few of hundreds. Now what business would anyone who professes to be a Christian have in supporting and viewing such dramatization and glorification of sin? And this is called "entertainment!" What we lend our influence to, what we put into our minds, and what we ponder in our hearts will help determine where we spend eternity. You won't miss anything worthwhile if you never see another movie for the rest of your life. The Bible says, "Abstain from every form of evil." (I Thess. 5:22)
Many parents who no longer or rarely go to movies themselves allow their children to attend regularly, and they do not even know what kind of diet they are receiving. The Bible says, "But nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord." (Eph. 6:4)