Letters To Lanier (II.)
Mr. Roy H. Lanier October 29, 1955 Nashville, Tennessee
Dear Brother Lanier:
I have read your five recent articles in the Gospel Advocate on "Congregational Cooperation" with much interest.
I understood from your first article, that you were going to locate, or at least, try to locate, common and scriptural ground on which all can stand and "do every good work the Lord expects his people to do." If you pointed out any such ground, I failed to get a bead on it.
I fear that you put a stumbling-block in your way of calming the tempest early in your writing by calling brethren "anti-cooperation brethren," and then propose proving that they are, if any denied the charge. This looks to me more like a challenge for a discussion, than it does locating "common and scriptural ground" on which all can stand and work together. The society people called Brother Lipscomb and all other loyal brethren, "antis." I regret seeing a staff writer of the Gospel Advocate copying after them.
To get the example of churches sending relief to Jerusalem to fit your sponsoring church method of cooperation, it is necessary for you to show that one of these churches became a sponsoring church, and that the other contributing churches sent their contributions to the sponsor, and that it forwarded the money to Jerusalem. Until you do this, your arguments fall to the ground.
In your fifth article, you said: "A movement that will stand the test of criticism given by the 'guardians of the gospel' in this brotherhood and live in spite of the opposition every new movement has to meet and which satisfies the demands of the sanctified common sense of the majority of the brethren deserves to live and be used."
Holding this position, I don't see how you can object to the society being invented for the reason it "satisfied the demands of the sanctified common sense of the majority of brethren," and "lived in spite of the opposition."
"Sanctified common sense of the majority brethren," put the organ in every church where it has ever gone. It was "the sanctified common sense of the majority brethren" that put the society in. Woodland Street church and drove Brother E. G. Sewell and others out. "Sanctified common sense of the majority brethren," will overthrow and dethrone any and all God's wisdom on all matter whenever, and wherever, it conflicts with God's wisdom. It will bring in every false doctrine and theory now existing, or which will exist, in the future. Strange position indeed for a gospel preacher to hold, especially one who is a staff writer of the Gospel Advocate.
In your third article, you have two cuts, endeavoring to illustrate the difference between those you term "anti-cooperation brethren," and those you call, "Cooperation brethren," and both parties are sending relief direct to Jerusalem. Here you represent your "anti-cooperation brethren" correctly, for the reason they plead for the direct method.
But, my dear Brother, the cut supposed to represent your "Cooperation brethren," misrepresents them, for the reason it shows them sending relief directly to Jerusalem, and that is not the way they do it. Instead of sending direct as shown by the cut, they send through sponsoring churches, a method unknown to New Testament writers. You have borrowed your indirect method of cooperation from the society people. Here are two cuts showing how both parties operate.
Charts Go Here Society Way Churches Phil. 4.15,16
Please observe that your "Cooperation brethren," and the society people, operate on the same principle — one through sponsoring churches, the other through the society board. Here is a cut showing how work was done in New Testament times.
Philippi acts independently of all others in sending support directly to Paul. But the sponsoring church stands as a center and hub around which other churches revolve, and through whose hopper preachers and money must be ground out. In the New Testament there is no centralization of power, such as is located in sponsoring churches.
The above cut shows that the New Testament way of cooperation is the direct method. All agree that this is common and scriptural ground on which all can stand and work in peace and harmony. Then why turn from this common and scriptural ground to a way that sows discord among brethren? There was no strife and discord among brethren over these matters, until you brethren borrowed the indirect method from the society people and began forcing it into churches over the protest of brethren, like the society people did the society more than a hundred years ago. When you brethren left union and scriptural ground, you drove the wedge that split the log; therefore, you are responsible for all the strife over these matters. If you 'brethren will come back home and stand on that union and scriptural ground you left, you will calm the tempest and save yourselves from having to "quarantine" each other for "sowing the seeds of discord among the brotherhood" and "thus prevent further division." May I see this and your reply in the Gospel Advocate?
Faithfully yours, C.E.W. Dorris