The Overflow
Correction:
It is the church in Las Vegas, New Mexico, about which we carried a note of caution, not Las Vegas, Nevada, as we erroneously stated in our last issue.
Hard to find Did you notice the little item in the news Christmas week about the three denominational preachers in a certain town who put their sermon subjects on their bulletin boards for the coming Sunday. One preached on "He Is Here"; another on "Where Is He? and the third on "God Has Changed His Address." We think that is pretty symbolic of the confused and confusing clamor of modern denominationalism.
"Lost Creek" or "Short Creek"?
"I read with interest the article in the November 26th issue of the "Band of Hope" which is under the supervision of the elders of the "Lost Creek church." As I haven't been able to locate "Lost Creek" on the map, I just wondered if maybe it could be "Short Creek" — the place over in Arizona where a whole colony of Mormons were arrested last summer for bigamy?" — Embree, Ontario, California.
Well, we hadn't given it much thought; but, could be! The "Band of Hope" article was anonymous, and fellows who are bigamous usually like to be anonymous too. Ho-hum.
Typical of many The following letter is typical of many we have received the past three or four years:
"While in a meeting last summer I visited with some friends whose boy had come under the influence of Ralph Wilburn. At one time the boy was wanting to be a preacher — in fact he had preached considerable while still in school. He attended Freed Hardeman College, but in doing graduate work in the University of Southern California, took some courses under Ralph Wilburn at Pepperdine. The family told me in tears a few weeks ago that their son had left the church and he and his wife were worshipping with the Methodist Church, and that on one Sunday he had filled the Methodist pulpit. The parents are naturally heartbroken...
The son wrote his parents a letter telling them of his decision. He asked them if they wouldn't rather have him in the Methodist Church than to have forsaken religion altogether. His father wrote him that his was already a case of unbelief. It is another of the pitiful results of the influence of Ralph Wilburn. Why he was allowed to teach such at Pepperdine College is to me a mystery explained can never be satisfactorily- ...."
— W. E. Kirk Waxahachie, Texas
"Just haired over"
We attended one session of a debate in Kilgore, Texas, a few weeks ago in which young Bryan Vinson, Jr. did a most excellent work in defending the truth against the false teachings of a Baptist pastor of Kilgore. Among the score or more of gospel preachers in attendance was the venerable J. Early Arceneaux — who became so exasperated at the wandering "oratory" of the Baptist pastor that he declared with his peculiar nasal accentuation: "That fellow reminds me of a man Charlie Nichol debated with once. Charlie said this man didn't have any head — his neck just growed up and haired over!"
Could this be one reason?
Brother Kirk wonders why Wilburn was allowed to remain so long (and defended so hotly) while teaching modernism in Pepperdine College. Well, scarcely a month goes by that we don't receive clippings from the California papers telling of Hugh Tiner being the principal speaker of some Holy Week service, or of E. V. Pullias conducting special services in some Lutheran or Congregational or digressive church, or of some other Pepperdine faculty member participating freely and whole-heartedly in sectarian movements and activities. Let no one be deceived: Ralph Wilburn was not the ONLY influence on the Pepperdine faculty leading young men and women into unbelief. Dean Pullias, who continues on the faculty, was and is in many ways a far more dangerous and insidious wrecker of faith than Wilburn. You think that is an unfair and unjust statement? Alright, just wait around and see. Remember it was this journal which was the one to point out Wilburn's defection from the truth when every other paper among us still printed his articles and defended him — just as they are now doing with Pullias.
Write the elders We have a request from the elders of the Church of Christ in Riverside, California, (2237 Ninth Street) that we publish a statement submitted by them explaining their reasons for the withdrawal of fellowship from Brother Ted R. Vaughan, their former preacher, who has lately been released from a jail sentence. The charges upon which Brother Vaughan was convicted and for which he served time are of so sordid and sensational a character that we prefer not to publish them. But the full story is available to anyone who will write the Riverside elders. The Riverside police department can also furnish information to those who have a right to such.
A little help, please?
For several years now the Gospel Guardian has been sent free of charge to all the preacher boys in the various Christian Colleges who care to receive it. Usually the administration of each school furnishes us with a full list of their preacher students at the beginning of the fall term. But, somehow, we failed to get the name of Issa Azat, a foreign student enrolled in David Lipscomb College. We see from the Nashville Tennessean that this young preacher has been engaged in a series of "Gospel Meetings" with the West Nashville Pentecostal Church. If one of the hundred or more preacher boys at Lipscomb College who receives the Gospel Guardian will send us Issa's address, we'll put him on the list. We think he needs the paper.
They get out of hand James P. Needham of Hayti, Missouri, sent us an article typical of many we receive. He knew it was a bit long, and added a note that the article "reminds me of the lady who was crocheting. When asked what she was making, she said, 'Well I was making a doily until it got out of hand. Now I'm making a bedspread'." We get those "bedspread" articles in nearly every mail. They're good, too. But too long. Remember the advice the newspaper editor gave his cub reporter: "Boil it down; cut off both ends; press it together; take out the middle. And keep your first sentence and your last sentence close together."
"Anti-missionary"
"I was visiting the other day with an elder and his wife in their place of business when the local preacher came in. Said the sister, 'I heard Brother Roy Cogdill preach some time ago, and it was the best sermon I ever heard; but I'm soured on him since I've learned he is opposed to missionary work.' The local preacher readily agreed with her that it was a sad thing for Brother Cogdill to be 'anti-missionary.' I spoke up: 'Sister, do you happen to know that at this very hour Brother Cogdill is in far off Canada, twenty-five hundred miles from his home, holding 'mission' meetings with struggling little bands of disciples, and getting congregations started in towns where there has never existed a church of Christ?" No, she didn't know that — but 'somebody,' she didn't remember who, had told her Cogdill was 'anti-missionary'!"
— Jack Huff Ponteau, Oklahoma