The Overflow
Parochial Schools
Brother Harold Savely of Nashville, Tennessee, sends us news of a Nashville congregation which has gone into the parochial school business. A "Bible Kindergarten" is being inaugurated "under the elders," which will require that students pay a tuition fee of $12.50 per month each. The sectarians have tried these parochial schools for generations, and have sought to shield their children from contact with the "unbelievers." The result: when their children do have contact with the world, they are woefully unprepared for it, and usually find their education for living in the modern world has been hopelessly lopsided and inadequate.
Plutomania
We ran across that word the other day for the first time. It is a social disease, epidemic in our generation, but by no means confined to our generation. A literal translation is "money-craziness." This is the same disease of the spirit Paul referred to as being "the root of all kinds of evil." It is the tragedy of the church in our day that certain of her most prominent and influential members and leaders are so seriously ill with the disease that recovery seems highly unlikely.
Not a word"
"I have just finished reading the articles by Bill Rogers and G. K. Wallace in the Gospel Advocate. They are filled with sarcasm, ridicule, and venom — and almost nothing else. It reminds me of the boy who took his father's brand new car out without permission one day and smashed a fender. He courageously went to his father's office to tell him what happened. Coming out of the office he met his mother, who asked, 'What did your father say about the smashed fender?' The son answered, 'Shall I leave out the cuss words? "Yes,' replied the mother. 'Well, in that case,' said the boy, 'Dad didn't say a word — not a single word.' I think the same applies to Rogers and Wallace if you leave out the smart aleck remarks, the ridicule, and the sarcasm." — A disgusted Advocate reader.
Green stamps
It is now reported that some of the "sheep-stealing" preachers among us are considering the possibility of working out a scheme to give green stamps to all members of other congregations whom they can allure to their services. We know one Texas city in which the preacher and elders of one congregation are making a systematic effort to cultivate and captivate the entire membership of another congregation. Why? Because the congregation they are raiding happens NOT to believe in supporting Herald of Truth, etc.!
"As prospered"
"Last Lord's day 214 well blessed, prosperous, good living, automobile owning, house holding, fine eating, televising, movie-going, tobacco smoking, coke drinking, ball game loving, steak eating, and fine clothes wearing attenders, gave the whopping, stupendous, colossal, gigantic, enormous average amount of $1.69 each ... for the greatest cause on earth!"
— Bulletin, Westside Church Phoenix, Arizona All tired out
From the Wichita Falls (Texas) newspaper we note: "When a woman tells the doctor she is all run down and tired out, the first thing he does is to ask to see her tongue!"
Clayton's article
We call special attention this week to the article by L. B. Clayton, an elder in the Tenth and Francis Streets church in Oklahoma City. Brother Clayton strikes at the very heart of the modern problem — the question of authority. Read the article carefully.
Rock 'n roll religion
Elvis (the Pelvis) Presley, bobby-sox sensation of the year due to his jerking, gyrating, twisting, wriggling, swaying, pelvic contortions as he sings (a police chief commented: "If he did that on the street we'd arrest him") has explained how he got his singing style: "We used to go to these here religious singings all the time (Assembly of God). There wuz these singers, perfectly fine singers, but nobody responded to 'em. Then there wuz these here other singers — the leader wuz a woman preacher — they cut up all over the place, jumpin' on the piano, moving every which-away. The audience liked em.' I guess I learned from them singers."
"Not excluded"
Brother E. R. Harper comes up with the not exactly new argument that he and James Walter Nichols were justified in adding sixty pages of new material by Harper in the printed "Harper-Tant Debate," because although the signed contract did not include it (did not mention it in fact), neither did it EXCLUDE it! That is precisely the kind of argument we would expect from Brother Harper. It is the kind of argument by which he justifies Herald of Truth: "The Bible does not authorize such arrangements — but neither does it EXCLUDE such." It is the old digressive argument on instrumental music: "Where does the Bible forbid it?"
Correction
"In the reprint article of mine on 'How To Establish Scriptural Authority,' fourth line from the bottom of page 319, first column, it reads: 'However, oak can not be considered as a class all to itself ...
It should read: 'However, oak can be considered as a class all to itself . As it appears, the true meaning is reversed."
— Marshall E. Patton Open letter to Roy Lanier
"From several different independent sources we have received word that you finally got 'fed up' with the high-handed treatment accorded you in the Gospel Advocate; that you were forced to positions contrary to your true convictions, and that the editor of that journal refused to permit you space for further articles in explanation of some of the positions advanced in your 'Cooperation' articles. If these reports be true, and if you wish to clarify your position, we inform you that the pages of the Gospel Guardian are open to you for a full, free, and unfettered treatment of the subject. We will print what you want to write, all of it, with no deletions, substitutions, or modifications. If those articles did not express your final and settled convictions on church cooperation, we will be happy to furnish you whatever space you desire for further elaboration. We print both sides."