"Some Things I Remember"
For some time I've been reading the articles pro and con on the method of doing Mission Work or Preaching the Gospel in foreign fields. Some brethren seem to think it makes but little difference how it is done just so it is done. This sounds so much like the digressive cry of fifty years ago.
When men like Yater Tant, Cled E. Wallace and Roy Cogdill write on these issues I digest fully what they say. They have been branded Anti-College, Anti-Missionary and almost anti-everything. All of this because they want Biblical examples followed.
Recently the editor of Firm Foundation laments and mourns fearing these fellows may cause a division in the church over the thing that he says no church is doing that he knows of.
I've read the Firm Foundation most of my life and presume I shall continue to read it. At one time I thought it dependable as a bulwark against error in the church and out of it. I'm sorry that I like many brethren no longer feel that way toward the F. F.
There has been a number of things happened in recent years that cause me to stop and remember... I remember that Don Carlos Janes was one man that could get anything I suppose, into the columns of F.F. For years he collected funds for foreign missionaries. Good brethren whose intentions could not be questioned sent their money in thinking it was going for the spread of the gospel in foreign fields, but when brother Janes departed this life he left in his will $40,000 I'm told for the spread of Premillennialism. How much warning did the editor of F.F. ever give the brotherhood about this evil before or after the death of Don Carlos Janes.
I remember not too long ago the Firm Foundation informed the brotherhood they were handling THE JORGENSON SONG BOOK. Did the editor tell the brotherhood this book was put out by a Pre-mil? Does he still handle the book?
I remember some five years ago that a man by name of Davidson, and it was not Clinton either, wrote of a conversation he had had with the editor of F.F. over the phone. This scribe with others sent some letters and some saw the editor in person and informed him it was time to take up his editorial pen and sling out some editorial ink and tell the brethren whether Davidson had told the truth. He did the following week. He wrote an editorial that was a dandy in the main; but before he finished threw dust in the faces of those who criticized pre-mils. Could he see any dangers then? Did he reprimand these false teachers and tell the brethren they were about to divide the church?
Is it not a fact that the editor is pleased and has been for a number of years to publish most anything even from a personal angle that would reflect upon the editor and publisher of Bible Banner or Gospel Guardian?
In the face of his record, don't you think he ought to be among the last to raise his voice and cry about things brethren might say against each others position on account of their personal likes, or dislikes of anyone. No paper in the brotherhood for years has carried more matter in its columns that would have been much better left out than the Firm Foundation. This is common talk among brethren. Just when did the policy of the editor change?
Personally I hold no ill will toward brother Showalter. I like him, in fact I love him, but I don't love all his ways of conducting a paper.
Seems like I remember that he published a letter from a brother that had investigated Pepperdine College and then the editor commented on this letter favorably and later the brother wrote a letter that was also published retracting what he had said in the former letter. This left the editor on a limb by himself. C? Couldn't the editor find anything wrong at Pepperdine? Was there any danger there? Ask the brethren in California; they can tell you. Ask John. Wolfe; he knows.
I recall a few years back when the editor of F.F. wrote some editorials on Commercialized Athletics in Christian Colleges. I wrote him and endorsed his editorials then. I thought he was right and I still think so. The report then was out that some of these editorials were written on account of some personal dislikes for somebody.
I respect brother Showalter's age and all the good things he has done, and every act of friendship shown to me by him, but when truth and the future of the church are at stake I must take my stand on what I believe to be a safe, sane and firm foundation, not "FIRM FOUNDATION." C When issues are involved that mean so much for the future of the church, men who love the Lord will take their stand with the Lord and his truth just as the brethren did when societies and instrumental music were the issues. These divided the church, but who did the dividing? Was it the innovators, or those who opposed the innovators?
Men in old age are not to be spared when they deviate from God's divine pattern regardless of who they are. Men in old age are about what they were in younger days. I'm no spring chicken myself. I've passed the three score mark.
Let the Gospel Guardian keep up its good work regardless of what other papers may do. Stand firm for the Lord. Take their belittlement, sarcasm, and ridicule, that doesn't meet argument. Our fore-fathers were belittled, ridiculed, laughed at, but they knew in whom they had believed, pressed on, and helped to make the church what it is today.
Many want to follow the policy today and take not a definite stand on any issue till they see which way the wind is blowing. The church would lose its identity if its future depended upon such characters. Some never see danger till after danger is upon them. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Softness in the pulpit produces weakness in the pew. Weakness in the pew leads to apostasy or disintegration. CRY ALOUD AND SPARE NOT.