The Overflow
Thanks!
During the first two months of this year we have added nearly ONE THOUSAND new subscribers to our Guardian family! That's the biggest number of new subscriptions we've had in that length of time since the very first month we began publishing the paper on a weekly basis. And it's a very welcome and encouraging change from the past year when our total number of subscriptions had remained relatively static. Thanks to all those who are sending in new subscriptions to us—and don't forget to renew your own!
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Eight infallible interpretations"
Brother Robert F. Turner, co-editor (with Harry Pickup, Jr.) of the excellent and fast-growing Arizona gospel paper "Son-Light," begins in this issue of the Guardian a series of articles on Catholic "interpretations." These articles will contain original material, not hitherto published, and will be of real aid to those who are trying to teach the truth to Catholics. We suggest that these articles be filed for future reference.
—O—
Green persimmons and Hadacol The way some of the brethren have been taking the Guardian apart in their writing lately makes us suspect they have been feasting on green persimmons. And the length of the articles all but convinces us they were weaned on a type-writer ribbon. Really, we can't be deserving of so much space and so much acid. These brethren must have been eating blackstrap molasses and yogurt to have so much energy. All of it washed down, no doubt, with liberal swigs of Hadacol. We believe less foaming and frothing and fireworks and more study would be a healthy development
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"Doctor of Humane Letters"
Congratulations to Dr. Hugh Tiner. He now carries in the Pepperdine catalogue the thrilling announcement that he is an "L.H.D." The Los Angeles Osteopathic College conferred upon him the honorary degree of "Doctor of Humane Letters." This puts brother Hugh far and away ahead of the other brethren in the mad scramble to get on top of the pile of "doctors." He is now a double-"doctor." If he can wangle an LL.D. from Harding College (like "Doctors" Brewer and Benson did), he will be so far ahead in the race that the others will probably give up in hopeless despair and envy. Now maybe the good "doctor" will write us one of his "humane letters". Shucks, that's the only kind we ever write; it just isn't in our system to be "inhuman" about anything.
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Lotteries banned Bishop Francis Eric Bloy last month banned all lotteries and games of chance in the Los Angeles Diocese of the Protestant Episcopal Church. These gambling games and devices have been widely used in the past by various denominational churches for raising money. And Bishop Bloy has the gall now to complain about the "moral sag" in contemporary society. Said he, "In this day of moral sag, the church must not retreat from what she believes to be right." But what about a little repentance and confession of guilt through all these past years when the Episcopal church (along with others) was doing so much to encourage gambling? There can be no doubt at all that the present "moral sag" in the nation is due in part at least to the gambling habit instilled in the youth of a generation ago by churches with their money drives.
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Congratulations Our venerable and able brother Showalter of the Firm Foundation has re-printed a couple of articles "Dangers of Church Co-Operation" that read like they came right out of the pages of the Guardian! In fact, they say so well what the Guardian has been saying these past two or three years that we are going to try to find space to run them within the next few weeks. We've had a number of brethren ask us if brother Showalter was really aware of how diametrically opposite the editorials are to the things the Foundation has been encouraging and promoting lately. We can't say about that; but we do know the editorials are good. They set forth the truth; and we're going to try to find space for them.
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Clarifying, indeed Brother Ben West to Brother Showalter: "Your two editorials 'Dangers of Church Cooperation' are far more clarifying than all Bros. Cogdill, Tant and Wright have written." And the thing that is most fully "clarified," demonstrated, and established beyond all peradventure of doubt or question, is that the present policy of the Firm Foundation is promoting and encouraging and abetting the very sort of "cooperation" the editorials warned against!
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Celibate
"The man who never in his life Hath washed the dishes for his wife Or polished up the silver plate Still is largely celibate!"
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Whale meat The Catholics are engaged in another of their world-shaking debates. Is a whale a fish, or not a fish? If the whale is a fish, his meat may be eaten on Fridays. If he is not a fish, being a mammal then it were a grievous sin to eat his meat on Fridays! What a whale of a problem that is! Probably the Pope himself will have to give the final decision.
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Brotherhood printing press Comes now a circular from "East First Street Church of Christ" in Austin, Texas, asking for contributions from the churches to set up a brotherhood printing press. J.D. Phillips, Leon Lorton, and C.W. Jernigan are the signers of the letter. They say, "We intend to set up this shop on a non-profit basis for the full benefit of the church. Whatever profit is made from any printing done will go right back into the work of the Lord." This is, of course, a logical and inevitable development of brother G.C. Brewer's teaching that "whatever Christians do as Christians, the church is doing." Maybe brother Phillips and his "one-cup, anti" brethren have been reading the Brewer writings along this line. Now what fine congregation will sponsor a dairy, ask the churches for donations, and turn the profits back into the Lord's work. And how about a laundry? a cement-mixing plant? a pickle factory? a casket making shop? Opportunities are unlimited. (See article, "We Work—You Pay" in this issue.)
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Accent on youth In keeping with the modern "accent on youth", we see where some of the churches are new starting a "Church of the Children", to meet at the same time each Sunday morning as the regular congregation assembles for worship. What out-worn, discarded, silly notion of the denominationalists won't our brethren try next. The mere enlightened denominational churches have more and more abandoned their "Children's Church" arrangements, declaring that they have discovered the wholesome, helpful relationship of families learning to worship together is completely lost when the children are segregated. If we are going to try to ape the denominationalists, let us at least profit by their mistakes.
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Pop-gun elders
"When I was a boy, we used to cut branches of an elderberry bush and make pop-guns. But in some places now brethren have reversed the practice—instead of making popguns out of elders, they try to make elders out of pop-guns." — S. D. Tant