When Should Opposition Cease?
Dr. James D. Bales, our taciturn critic of few words points this one in our direction in the Firm Foundation.
They should either cease their opposition to Lubbock or demonstrate their willingness to be consistent ay dissolving the Gospel Guardian organization. So it has come to this! If you miss the next issue of the Gospel Guardian, you will know what's the matter. In all probability the "organization" will be consistently dissolved in the boundless and bottomless solution mixed up in Arkansas and printed in the Firm Foundation. Before that happens I crave permission to sing a short swan song, the first stanza of which has to do with "their opposition to Lubbock." The canny editor of "Torch" puts the general principle this way, and if I had any idea that I could say it better, I would put it my way.
On what principle can the eldership of a church in America take the oversight of an institution in Europe or Asia, whether that organization be a school or an orphanage? When the eldership of a church becomes a centralized board of benevolence or a general board of foreign missions, it is just as unscriptural as any other board, and the authority for it may be found on the blank page of your New Testament.
Sure enough, the good doctor, who is not given to much writing, first tried to prove it by the New Testament, and drew a "blank, page." He did quote a few passages which were easily shown to be "incompetent," "irrelevant," and "immaterial," in relation to what he was trying to prove. They all left him "without supporting evidence." The editor of the Firm Foundation gingerly cited the same references, but did not quote them. I can't say that I blame him. His mistake was in even citing them. They certainly do not prove what we are opposed to. We do not oppose what the scriptures teach.
Now, our reserved critic has broken his habitual silence and proved what we oppose in a two and one-half page article in the Firm Foundation. My impression is that if he could find support for his contention in the New Testament, it would not take that much space to prove it. But this time he did not resort to the New Testament. If he quoted a passage, or even cited a reference found in that holy volume, I failed to see it. Since the New Testament proved to be unsatisfactory, he proved it by the "Roy E. Cogdill Publishing Company," and "The Gospel Guardian organization." I hate to disappoint the worthy gentleman, who speaks his piece so seldom, but that sort of proof is unacceptable to me, and from what little I hear, I'm inclined to think that Memphis and Lubbock will also turn it down. They may have arrived at the point where they do not need any proof either from us or the New Testament. Things like that do happen.
It so happens that the Gospel Advocate "organization" and the Firm Foundation "organization" operate fundamentally about the same way "The Gospel Guardian organization" does. Under normal conditions nobody has found any serious fault with it. They always come in handy though when somebody wants to do something he cannot prove by the New Testament. Digressive logicians, professional and amateur, turned to the Gospel Advocate and the Firm Foundation for proof and comfort when they could not find support in the New Testament for their missionary societies. They could not discern the difference between a missionary society and a publishing business. Brother Beam has employed the same tactics in the advocacy of his peculiar ideas on fellowship, and now the master of logic from Arkansas uses up more than two pages in the Firm Foundation to prove that he does not know the difference between a publishing house and a gospel paper, and a "provincial eldership."
With apologies to the editor of "Torch," such logic "runs parallel to the parlance of a group of digressive brain trusters' in Tennessee and Texas over forty years ago."
Three Blind Mice
Brother Roy Lanier writes brother Roy Cogdill:
Tell Cled to watch his "split infinitives" when he is criticizing James Bales for his poor grammer.
That makes three of us. Jim Bales, who mastered in English says "it was not me." The "ace writer of the brotherhood" splits his infinitives, and Roy Lanier, the head of the Bible department in a Christian college can't spell grammar. These are perilous times. The future of the church is dark.
The Two Men In The Temple
"Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican." (Luke 18:10-11)
"It is definitely a compliment to me, however, that the brother does not have me classed with the carping, captious, censorious citizens who sojourn among us. I thank you, brother." (G. C. Brewer in Gospel Advocate)
We congratulate the good brother on his advanced progress in the "kindness and love of God" the editor of the Firm Foundation heartily recommends to all of us. If he is unwilling to be 'classed' with us poor publicans, it would not hurt him any, and it might help us, for him to display less contempt when he looks in our direction. Somebody might get the idea that he is not as holy as he pretends to be.
—O—
W. E. Fortney, 162 Harrison St., Clarksburg, W. Va., Jan. 18: "The Wednesday night Bible class at Blueville, Grafton, W. Va., continues to bear precious fruit. One man has been baptized into Christ. Brother Dennis will begin a meeting there on January 28."