A Concerned Voice, Concerning "Voices Of Concern"
With mixed emotions I read the book "Voices of Concern," a compilation of essays critical of gospel preachers and churches of Christ. (They always spell church with a capital C).
Some of these brethren I know well and have been rather close to them. Our warm and friendly greeting can no more be expressed. Something has come between us. How sad! Some of the essayists I have never met, and others I have known by reputation. Were they ever members of the Lord's body? If they were, Peter gives a vivid description of them in II Peter 2:20-22.
I read in the introductory the feelings of some, "And those who do read, they said, may read with such bias that they will get no profit." After reading that, I decided to read the book with as little bias as was possible for me to have.
I have to admit that I have seen some "sectarian zeal" and some whom I thought were "being political in the church. I even admit that there are some who want to be of "the clergy", and others who want to have a "clergy" to preside over them. Possibly the teaching of "grace" has not been emphasized enough in some places.
I read carefully Robert Meyers' statement, "One fact seems too clear for anyone to overlook. As leaders in all churches are increasingly educated, the tension between party strictures and the free mind will increase dramatically. Men trained to study analytically and critically will not be content with unyielding orthodoxy. They will not submit to coercion. If they are driven out because they will not conform, the result will be intellectual suicide for the churches losing them. With thoughtful men excluded, the stalwarts left behind to guard the walls will be only those who have never dared challenge any tenets of the system, men who can be 'counted upon', and 'loyal'." And, "From one small circle of friends at Freed-Hardeman College, six of the most intelligent and articulate no longer serve in the Church of Christ." I wondered: Are all of those of us who believe in one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God a bunch of slow, uninformed, dull clods? As dull as I am, I recall that this same Robert Meyers said of himself as "...a person of strong enthusiasms and deep attachments...." "It was not long before I could vanquish any of my childhood playmates with barrages of proof texts." How I now long to see some of his proof texts! Where are they? If I have ever seen a book that makes an appeal to the wisdom of this world, this is it. Such essays, void of an appeal to the text to set forth their ideas, leave me a little less than "vanquished." It rather underwhelms me!
Such wild charges as, "There is a crisis of faith among our people. Our pulpits are filled with men who do not believe what they preach and who dare not preach what they believe" does a little less than "vanquish" me, also. Is this statement made by one of the "men trained to study analytically and critically"? Is he one who is "most intelligent and articulate"? "Articulate" I will admit. "Intelligent", I doubt. Why not name the hypocrites or tell with whom he has been keeping company?
I read also of "bright young minds...." Was the statement, "Paul's conversion, in my understanding, was not so much the conversion from one religion to another as it was the conversion from priestly to prophetic faith" made by such a "bright young mind"? Hear Paul, who must have not been so "bright". "For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jew's religion.... If that means anything at all, it means that Paul is not now in the Jew's religion. Hence, converted from it!
The same "bright mind" has given us some more information in this statement. "However, time and experience have convinced us that there is no one pattern that is convincing to all right-thinking people. " Now isn't that "bright"? All "right-thinking people" are going in different directions, seeking different goals, worshipping different gods! I am really glad that this "bright mind" told us that "time and experience have convinced us" because it surely was not God's word that convinced us of such.
There is a woman who seems to spend a great deal more time in reading "the prayer book" than the New Testament. If she knows as little about "the prayer book" as she does about the New Testament, or about that which has been taught by gospel preachers, she is a poor representative of either. Of "reconciliation" she says, "It is a reward, earned by man through obedience in baptism." She also says, "Salvation by works, not by grace, was (and is) the teaching of her mother church." No one--not even she--has ever heard a gospel preacher teach such.
Then there is the learned Ph.D. that "ridiculously re-baptized" a Roman Catholic and now thinks more of Emerson that he does of Jesus Christ. And Robert Meyers thinks "the result will be intellectual suicide for the churches" if we lose such. With friends like that, why would the church need enemies?
And what shall I more say? for the space would fail to tell of those who doubt God's word, pervert the worship, deny the organization, shun the name and disgrace the body of the Lord.
Regardless of what men say, the gospel is still the power of God unto salvation. God gave his words to Christ and Christ gave them to the apostles, and the apostles gave them to us. Let us "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh."
Santa Ana, California