Editorial
Matthew Henry, one of the greatest of Biblical commentators, and Jonathan Swift, perhaps the most brilliant satirist the English speaking world has ever produced were both born in the mid-seventeenth century. And both of them used a sentence which has become proverbial in the form they gave it, but which in reality is but a paraphrase of a still more famous quotation from Isaiah. In his Commentary on Jeremiah 20 Matthew Henry wrote, "None so blind as those that will not see;" and in the third Dialogue of his Polite Conversation Jonathan Swift wrote (rather ungrammatically) "There is none so blind as they that won't see." Bible students quickly recognize that both Henry and Swift were indebted to the prophet Isaiah for the thought. Paul quotes him as follows: "For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, And I should heal them." (Acts 28:27)
On the front page this week we carry an article by Brother Hoyt Houchen entitled "Herald of Truth Convention." We could not help recalling the words of Isaiah (quoted by both Christ and Paul many centuries later) and the words of Henry and Swift as we read that article. We were reminded also of this truth as we saw the Firm Foundation of September 15, and noted their special "feature" of the week — the "Herald of Truth." Perhaps by the time this editorial appears in print Brother Lemmons will have, in his characteristic style, published a strong condemnation of the Herald of Truth, but that week he declared himself as being "completely in favor of this effort being made by the Highland church." (He is a man who is often in error, but is never in doubt).
When this writer was debating Brother E. R. Harper at Lufkin in the early part of 1955, the Herald of Truth "cooperative" was the issue under discussion. It was brother Harper's strong contention that "Herald of Truth" was simply Highland Church's own radio program, and that it was utterly unfair and inaccurate to try to parallel this project to a "missionary society,' since there was "no organization but the local congregation!" Brother J. Early Arceneaux, seated near the front of the auditorium, passed a penciled note to this writer (which we still have) saying: "Remind him that Catholicism started not by organizations outside the church but by the church becoming organized." We did indeed point this out to Brother Harper and the audience. We felt that Brother Harper never did understand the point, but certainly many in the audience did understand. And not only did those present understand, but students of religious affairs even remote from both Lufkin and Abilene had little trouble in seeing Herald of Truth for what it was and is. Witness the quotation from Dr. A. T. DeGroot as cited in the article by Brother Houchen.
We suppose that even to this good day, nearly ten years later, Brother Harper and the brethren promoting Herald of Truth still can not see (or will not?) that Herald of Truth is something MORE than a simple radio program of a single congregation. It is a gigantic "cooperative," a plan, arrangement, program of activity by which a way has been found for several thousand congregations to pool certain of their resources and function as a single organization under a single eldership. We have long since abandoned any real hope that the brethren pushing this church-splitting project will accept the responsibility for what they have done in bringing havoc to the Churches of God, or really are capable (in their present frame of mind) of even recognizing such havoc. It is so much easier to blame others than to search the soul for the true answer. And certainly it is far more satisfying to the ego to suppose that one is a far-sighted pioneer in advancing the cause of Christ than to recognize "that thou are the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked." But history is an impartial judge; and when the passions and tensions of our generation have long since subsided, and all who were involved in any way either in promoting or in opposing Herald of Truth have perished from the earth, our children and our grand-children will have little difficulty in recognizing that the Herald of Truth was but a modern and up-to-date name given to an old, old heresy — The concept of the church universal as a functional body.
God's plan of church government, as seen on the pages of the New Testament, is that each church, under its own elders, by the sacrifice and activity of its own members, shall do its own work, fulfill its mission as a congregation and shall be independent of all other congregations. The basic heresy of Catholic church government was the activating of the "church universe.," ile. the development of a scheme, [repeated line] "church universal," i.e. the development of a scheme, an arrangement, a plan by which all the churches could unite their efforts, their influence, and their resources under some commonly accepted centralized authority. The Reformers under Martin Luther perpetuated the error on a denominational scale when they organized their centralized denominational machinery. Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone for a while broke away from this concept, but Campbell_ was never fully divorced from the idea (we believe Barton Stone had a much clearer concept here than did Campbell); and became the father and first President of the American Christian Missionary Society. This "Missionary Society" was, once again, nothing basically different from the Catholic concept of a way, a plan, an agency through which the "church universal" can become a functional body. In the 1870's and 1880's a number of congregations in Texas made the same grave error: funds from many congregations were turned over to the elders of one church to "administer" in behalf of all the contributing churches. Brother Carroll Kendrick called this "sponsoring eldership" a "Receiving, Managing, and Disbursing Evangelistic Committee." Through the heroic efforts of David Lipscomb this sort of "cooperative" was finally shown to be unscriptural, and was abandoned — until revived on a bigger scale than ever in the Herald of Truth!
It is an ancient heresy. It has deceived men through all the ages — men of high motives and noble purpose. It has always gendered trouble and strife and apostasy; it will ever do so. For there can be found no scriptural way (even under an eldership!) to do an unscriptural thing. And activating the "church universal" is indeed an unscriptural thing.
F. Y. T.
Matthew Henry, one of the greatest of Biblical commentators, and Jonathan Swift, perhaps the most brilliant satirist the English speaking world has ever produced were both born in the mid-seventeenth century. And both of them used a sentence which has become proverbial in the form they gave it, but which in reality is but a paraphrase of a still more famous quotation from Isaiah. In his Commentary on Jeremiah 20 Matthew Henry wrote, "None so blind as those that will not see;" and in the third Dialogue of his Polite Conversation Jonathan Swift wrote (rather ungrammatically) "There is none so blind as they that won't see." Bible students quickly recognize that both Henry and Swift were indebted to the prophet Isaiah for the thought. Paul quotes him as follows: "For this people's heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, And I should heal them." (Acts 28:27)
On the front page this week we carry an article by Brother Hoyt Houchen entitled "Herald of Truth Convention." We could not help recalling the words of Isaiah (quoted by both Christ and Paul many centuries later) and the words of Henry and Swift as we read that article. We were reminded also of this truth as we saw the Firm Foundation of September 15, and noted their special "feature" of the week — the "Herald of Truth." Perhaps by the time this editorial appears in print Brother Lemmons will have, in his characteristic style, published a strong condemnation of the Herald of Truth, but that week he declared himself as being "completely in favor of this effort being made by the Highland church." (He is a man who is often in error, but is never in doubt).
When this writer was debating Brother E. R. Harper at Lufkin in the early part of 1955, the Herald of Truth "cooperative" was the issue under discussion. It was brother Harper's strong contention that "Herald of Truth" was simply Highland Church's own radio program, and that it was utterly unfair and inaccurate to try to parallel this project to a "missionary society,' since there was "no organization but the local congregation!" Brother J. Early Arceneaux, seated near the front of the auditorium, passed a penciled note to this writer (which we still have) saying: "Remind him that Catholicism started not by organizations outside the church but by the church becoming organized." We did indeed point this out to Brother Harper and the audience. We felt that Brother Harper never did understand the point, but certainly many in the audience did understand. And not only did those present understand, but students of religious affairs even remote from both Lufkin and Abilene had little trouble in seeing Herald of Truth for what it was and is. Witness the quotation from Dr. A. T. DeGroot as cited in the article by Brother Houchen.
We suppose that even to this good day, nearly ten years later, Brother Harper and the brethren promoting Herald of Truth still can not see (or will not?) that Herald of Truth is something MORE than a simple radio program of a single congregation. It is a gigantic "cooperative," a plan, arrangement, program of activity by which a way has been found for several thousand congregations to pool certain of their resources and function as a single organization under a single eldership. We have long since abandoned any real hope that the brethren pushing this church-splitting project will accept the responsibility for what they have done in bringing havoc to the Churches of God, or really are capable (in their present frame of mind) of even recognizing such havoc. It is so much easier to blame others than to search the soul for the true answer. And certainly it is far more satisfying to the ego to suppose that one is a far-sighted pioneer in advancing the cause of Christ than to recognize "that thou are the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked." But history is an impartial judge; and when the passions and tensions of our generation have long since subsided, and all who were involved in any way either in promoting or in opposing Herald of Truth have perished from the earth, our children and our grand-children will have little difficulty in recognizing that the Herald of Truth was but a modern and up-to-date name given to an old, old heresy — The concept of the church universal as a functional body.
God's plan of church government, as seen on the pages of the New Testament, is that each church, under its own elders, by the sacrifice and activity of its own members, shall do its own work, fulfill its mission as a congregation and shall be independent of all other congregations. The basic heresy of Catholic church government was the activating of the "church universe.," ile. the development of a scheme, [repeated line] "church universal," i.e. the development of a scheme, an arrangement, a plan by which all the churches could unite their efforts, their influence, and their resources under some commonly accepted centralized authority. The Reformers under Martin Luther perpetuated the error on a denominational scale when they organized their centralized denominational machinery. Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone for a while broke away from this concept, but Campbell_ was never fully divorced from the idea (we believe Barton Stone had a much clearer concept here than did Campbell); and became the father and first President of the American Christian Missionary Society. This "Missionary Society" was, once again, nothing basically different from the Catholic concept of a way, a plan, an agency through which the "church universal" can become a functional body. In the 1870's and 1880's a number of congregations in Texas made the same grave error: funds from many congregations were turned over to the elders of one church to "administer" in behalf of all the contributing churches. Brother Carroll Kendrick called this "sponsoring eldership" a "Receiving, Managing, and Disbursing Evangelistic Committee." Through the heroic efforts of David Lipscomb this sort of "cooperative" was finally shown to be unscriptural, and was abandoned — until revived on a bigger scale than ever in the Herald of Truth!
It is an ancient heresy. It has deceived men through all the ages — men of high motives and noble purpose. It has always gendered trouble and strife and apostasy; it will ever do so. For there can be found no scriptural way (even under an eldership!) to do an unscriptural thing. And activating the "church universal" is indeed an unscriptural thing.
F. Y. T.