"What The Brethren Are Saying "
I agree whole-heartedly with brother Paden, et al., on the necessity of mission work any and everywhere on the earth. And I also agree 100 per cent with brother Cled Wallace, for he is exactly right.
Can anyone look down the stream of time and foretell whether or not the mother, or "sponsoring" church will not develop into a missionary society? And when it looks like it is headed that way, why should not warnings be sounded against such?
But aside from that angle, has anyone any faith at all in our present government protecting our citizens or property in any country dominated by Catholics or communists? Don't our brethren read the papers? The "four freedoms" that Roosevelt guaranteed to us were so much hogwash. No country where the Catholic Church is in control will ever have these freedoms.
Are we not taught in the Bible to first "count the cost" before undertaking a building? If we lose our property to Italy, and the Catholic Church runs our citizens out, it will be centuries before we can again go in there. Would it not be cheaper and far better to recruit young men there and bring them to this country and educate them in our Christian colleges, let them taste of democracy in action, and then send them back to their native land to spread the gospel?
—R. S. Worley
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Too Much Denominational Machinery
"Too much denominational machinery is being put into operation these days. Even "mass meetings" are too close akin to the digressive conventions to be in the New Testament. Brother J. D. Tant used to say, 'Brethren, we are drifting.' Well, the drifting has been done by too many, and down-right digression has become a reality
The recent article in the Guardian by Waymon D. Miller, "Missionary" to South Africa, is sane, safe, and scriptural. Brethren should carefully read this article and cool down. Not only brethren here in the U. S. A., but every worker on a foreign field should read the article. It might be best for some of them to learn the truth as taught by brother Miller before they go abroad... I like the Guardian, and I'm not afraid to say so."
—E. G. Creacy, Horse Cave, Kentucky
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"So Many Experts And Specialists"
"Why can't men be satisfied with the church as the Lord gave it? It seems to me that the time some spend in trying to make new machinery and the energy used in getting the new machinery started and then maintained could be better used in working along the lines of the Lord's plan. This is a solution entirely too simple for some. It takes an expert to operate a complicated machine—maybe that is the reason we are developing so many experts and specialists in the church. I bought a new car the other day. I got in the thing and had to look around quite a bit to find the starter button. It was new to me. If Paul should return and visit many of the congregations today, if he ever managed to get the door open and get on the inside, I venture someone would have to show him how to start the thing. He would not know that he made a mistake in planting churches instead of starting schools and homes to soften up the people and slick them into it."
—Floyd A. Decker, Haynesville, La.
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"Not Too Optimistic"
"I have had some little time to spend with C. R. Nichol lately. He is in a meeting not far from here. His view is that the colleges and the men they are training will lead the church into digression within a few years unless some changes can be brought about. He is not too optimistic over the outcome."
—Cled E. Wallace, Lufkin, Texas
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"What's Wrong With It"
"Some churches have practiced the questionable procedure of moving a piano or other musical instrument into the church house for weddings or funerals or perhaps some other occasion not directly connected with the Lord's day worship. Some few have just left the instrument in after the wedding in anticipation of other occasions; and there are now churches of Christ in America which have spent the Lord's money for the purchase of mechanical instruments of music which are kept on the premises and owned by the congregations. When we question the propriety of such practice, they ask, "What's wrong with it?" I believe I can think of a dozen things "wrong with it," but if I could not think of even one thing wrong with it that would not prove the practice right... You can never be sure until you base your practice on what you know to be right, instead of on what others don't know to be wrong."
—Jack Hardcastle (Gospel Defender)
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"Dangers Confronting Us"
"In preaching we hear more and more of human reasoning and logic and less and less of the Word of God. There is a trend in preaching, teaching, and writing on matters dealing with right and wrong toward the use of more and more human reasoning and logic, and less and less of the word of God. As a result, the general thinking of the members of the church is guided more and more by the opinions of men, chiefly preachers, and less and less by the word of God. Modernism, one of the gravest dangers confronting us, is no more than an extreme form of this disregard for, and denial of, the authority of the scriptures."
—A. C. Pullias (D. L. C. Bulletin)
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"Opposed To Anarchy"
"I have thought that the discipline at the school (Freed-Hardeman College) was arbitrary, often discriminatory, and antiquated, but even so, I have never and cannot now endorse the spirit of anarchy and mob hysteria so manifest in the "sit down strike" at the school... When the time comes that we must allow our teen-age boys and girls and our preacher boys to run the schools, the time has come for us to close all their doors. I may be a pessimist and as our loquacious brother Brewer says, "guilty of lugubrious howling," but the future of New Testament Christianity in its immediate prospects looks exceedingly dark. The signs of coming apostasy are to me increasingly evident. Political machinations and sectarian intrigue are invading all of the sacred precincts that should be dedicated to humble, self-sacrificing service unto Christ. One is constrained to cry, "Oh Lord, how long!"
—James W. Adams, Longview, Texas
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Congregational Support Of Good Works
"Anyone should know that a congregation cannot support everything that is hailed as a good work. Hospitals are doing a good work, and while it is perfectly right for a congregation to pay, a needy brother's hospital bill, it would not license us to make regular contributions to such institutions."
—M. E. Cottrell (Fellowship News)