The Begging Campaigners
James W. Adams
A number of years ago when Eugene Smith (now deceased) was promoting a radio broadcast on a Mexican station ("Gospel Broadcast") and financing it through a solicitation of contributions on the program itself and via the mails, Brother Foy E. Wallace (Jr.) attacked the activities of Smith in the columns of the Bible Banner. As we recall, he referred to Smith's promotion as "The Begging Broadcast," and had much to say about the embarrassment to which the churches were being subjected by Smith's alleged "begging."
Let it be said in defense of the dead that Brother Smith was simply born twenty-five years too soon. Were he alive today, he could point to some of his then dignified critics, who rejoiced in Wallace's opposition to his promotion, and laugh to find them doing the same kind of public begging through the daily newspaper. More than that, he could find a great deal of satisfaction in the fact that Brother Foy E. Wallace is now running with the pack which endorses and defends such practices.
In the Sunday Oklahoman, February 9, 1964, probably a million people in and out of the State of Oklahoma were exposed to a display advertisement of 36 column inches, placed there by the "Vandelia Village Church of Christ," of Lubbock, Texas, promoting the camouflaged missionary society under its auspices called, "Campaigns for Christ." Prominent in the advertisement was an appeal for contributions from one and all to support the promotion, concerning which more will be said later in this article. Surely, we do not misrepresent these brethren when we regard them as public beggars. When may we expect them to have uniformed lassies with tambourines and black kettles on street corners begging for the nickels and dimes of passers-by? Who knows, the time may be at hand, even at the door!
The advertisement in question began with a large headline which was immediately contradicted by a statement in small print. The contradiction, we are sure, was not intentional, but it is there none the less. Such contradictions are commonly associated with promotions based on pernicious error. The large headline read, "THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST SALUTE YOU WITH....CAMPAIGNS FOR CHRIST." The statement, "Campaigns for Christ." half circled a picture of the globe on which was superimposed the sign of the cross. The line in smaller print denied that churches of Christ were saluting the readers with "Campaigns for Christ" by saying, "Conducted by the Vandelia Village Church of Christ, Lubbock, Texas." A thing cannot be universal or general and local at the same time. If "Campaigns for Christ" are conducted by Vandelia Village (singular) as its own work, as the advertisement also contends, then they cannot be a salutation of churches of Christ (plural). This is like the title, "Roman Catholic Church." A long time ago, Alexander Campbell called attention to the fact that this title contains a contradiction within itself. He pointed out that a thing could not be Roman and Catholic at the same time. Roman is specific and Catholic is universal or general. If it is Roman, it is not Catholic; if it is Catholic, it is not Roman. Vandelia Village Church of Christ is local, specific; churches of Christ is a universal or general designation. However, the truth of the matter is that, inadvertently, the language of the advertisement reveals the true nature of so-called "Campaigns for Christ." It reveals that it is in fact a cooperative of professed churches of Christ, , including Vandelia Village, which operates through the eldership of the Vandelia Village Church as its official board in the performance of the general obligation of the churches to "preach the word." In this arrangement, the Vandelia Village elders do not function as the elders of the Vandelia Village Church, a congregation, but as ecumenical elders, "brotherhood elders," official directors of an association of churches in a cooperative missionary endeavor. In principle, there is not one whit difference between this and a "missionary society." One is quite as scriptural as the other.
The advertisement calls in question the scripturalness of the formation of a "separate, independent organization" to do such work. We contend that the structure of "Campaigns for Christ" is tantamount in every essential feature to a "separate organization." The organizational aspect of the arrangement is simply camouflaged under the cognomen of a church. New Testament elders are local, not ecumenical. A true New Testament church does not function through another church to fulfill responsibilities which are equally the duty of all the churches. When elders become overseers of "brotherhood" projects and a church becomes an agency through which other churches function to perform any general work, equally the responsibility of all the churches, the elders cease to be "elders" and become a humanly conceived board of directors of a human organization. The functioning organism thus born is a human body separate from and independent of the church, as much so as any missionary society ever dared to be.
The advertisement appealed to Acts 13:3 and 21:8 as proof of the scripturalness of "Campaigns for Christ." To an informed mind, this is a piece of chicanery. We endorse campaigns for Christ as eminently scriptural. But we, at the same time and with perfect consistency, repudiate "Campaigns for Christ" as absolutely unscriptural. There is a vast difference between campaigns for Christ in the sense of a group of workers laboring together at some place and time to bring souls into the kingdom of God, as in the Scripture texts given, and "Campaigns for Christ" in the sense of a centralized organization into which hundreds of churches and thousands of Christians pour their funds to be controlled and used by the central organization in preaching the gospel throughout the world, whether the central organization be called a church or a missionary society, it matters not! Paul participated in campaigns for Christ in the first sense, but by no stretch of the imagination nor by any hermeneutical sleight of hand can the Scriptures be made to produce a pattern for the sort of thing which Vandelia Village Church promotes. The "Campaigns for Christ" promotion involves a gross perversion of a New Testament eldership and a New Testament church of Christ. The advertisement contained fervent testimonials from Guy N. Woods, Willard Collins, Otis Gatewood, Reuel Lemmons, and M. Norvel Young. It will suffice to quote Otis Gatewood's testimonial to substantiate the organizational character of "Campaigns for Christ." He wrote: "I can fully say that the campaign idea of preaching the Gospel of Christ to the mission fields is one of the best things that we have experienced in this modern generation. I would very much like to be a part of the organization that you are setting up there and to participate in it." Was Brother Gatewood suggesting that the Vandelia Village Church is just now being brought into existence, being "set up"? Surely not, for this congregation has existed for many years. The organization to which he referred is not, therefore, the Vandelia Village Church, but something other than the church. Otis Gatewood being our witness, corroborated by the Vandelia Village Church itself which published the advertisement, "Campaigns for Christ" is an organization set up by the Vandelia Village Church in cooperation with other professed churches of Christ to "preach the Gospel of Christ in the mission fields." Why then should these brethren oppose a missionary society? In principle, a missionary society is this, no more, no less!
As we promised earlier in this article, we now call the readers attention to the fact that these brethren have out-Smithed Smith, of days gone by, in "embarrassing the churches" with a public begging campaign to finance their promotion. The appeal is made for "5,000 Christian families to send $2.00 per week for the next three years." Congregations are to make regular contributions. Individuals are solicited to support the effort through "endowments, insurance beneficiaries, estates, commodities and wills. All of this, mind you, is done in the public press, a large metropolitan daily. Surely, these brethren are out-begging the "Begging Broadcast. Furthermore, they are guilty of coveting money from the pockets of Christians that might be contributed into the treasuries of the congregation of which they are a part to be used by those congregations in building adequate programs of gospel work in those congregations. They thus propose to rob those churches of the spiritual growth and development that such programs of work controlled and executed by themselves would bring. A more arrogant, audacious, and sinfully presumptuous proposal has never come to our attention in more than thirty years of gospel preaching.
This Brethren, is the Pentecost of our modern digression, the first fruits of the harvest of apostasy. However, instead of the first fruits being offered to the glory of God, as at Pentecost under the law of Moses, they are offerings on the altar of "the god of this world." And this is only the beginning. The principle of church operation involved in the "Campaigns for Christ" arrangement, followed to, its logical and inevitable conclusion, will place all of the general work of the churches and major portion of their resources under a few ambitious men and overinflated churches who are self-appointed to their respective functions and whose authority is self-determined and self-assumed. A more grossly irrational concept of the cooperative functioning of a great body of free, intelligent, religious people could not have been concocted in the wildest of wild "Freudian nightmares." Beside it, the missionary society is a model of virtue!
— 3105 N. W. 35th Place, Oklahoma City, Okla.