The Overflow
Faith "healer"
Late in 1955 Jack Coe of Dallas, Texas, nationally known "faith healer" was sued for $150,000.00 by a Miami, Florida, couple whose three year-old son, a polio victim, was seriously hurt when Coe ordered the braces struck from his legs in a "faith-healing" service. On December 16, 1956, Associated Press dispatches from Dallas carried the news that Jack Coe had died that day in Dallas' Parkland Hospital. Of bulbar polio. No comment.
Some questions — and answers
We commend the articles last week and this, "Some Questions — And Answers" to your careful study. Over and over again the religious journals carry articles trying to reduce current controversies in the church to a discussion about "methods." In answering Brother Thompson's question about this, Marshall Patton shows conclusively that this is to "misrepresent" the issue; the controversy is over organizations, not methods. But read the articles, and see for yourself.
Modern education
"The modern youth goes to college all too often to become proficient in handling the horsehide, the pigskin, and to strut himself in the coonskin while working for his sheepskin. And by the time he gets through, his old man has been pretty well skinned too."
— Copeland's Toasts Enthusiasm
Abraham Lincoln used to tell of a Methodist preacher he had once known "out west." Said Lincoln, "This brother used to get so wrought up and so excited in his prayers and exhortations that they had to put bricks in his pockets to keep him on the floor." We saw a lineal descendant of this Methodist brother in one of our pulpits recently pleading for some of the "sponsoring church" promotions. Only the brethren had forgotten the bricks, and the promoter sailed off into the wild blue yonder with simply preposterous claims of how many millions (or was it billions?) they expected to convert by their project.
As Campbell saw it
"No man ever achieved any great good to mankind who did not fight for it with courage and perseverance, and who did not, in the conflict, sacrifice either his good name or his life. John lost his head. The apostles were slaughtered. The Savior was crucified. The ancient confessors were slain. The reformers were excommunicated. If I am not slandered and misrepresented, I shall be a most unworthy advocate of the cause which has always provoked the resentment of those who will not try to think or learn."
— Alexander Campbell
As Whiteside saw it
"Innovations are usually adopted on the plea of 'expediency,' and afterward defended as scriptural. Societies, sprinkling and instrumental music are illustrations."
— R. L. Whiteside. Del Rio, Texas
This page is being written in Del Rio, Texas, on the Mexican border, in the heart of the drouth-stricken ranch country. They have had a seven year drouth in this area, with only four inches of rainfall last year, and only eight inches the year before (as against a normal 20 inches per year). This is our fourth meeting in this town within the last seven years. Nearly fifty years ago the editor's father, J. D. Tant, held the first gospel meeting in Del Rio — and had to post guards around the tent to prevent its being cut down or having rocks through the canvas. Times have changed!
He has many descendants
"Old Thomas Mulvaney lies here His big mouth ran from ear to ear, Reader, tread lightly on this wonder, For if he yawns,
you're gone to thunder." — Epitaph, Middlefield, Mass., Cemetery. Primary and secondary?
New things: We have just run across a new argument to justify the benevolent organizations and church contributions to colleges. It was sincerely urged upon us in all seriousness by a mature gospel preacher who preaches for one of the biggest and most active congregations in the Ohio Valley. The argument is that in the primary function of the church (evangelism) no organization but the church is permitted; but in any and all secondary functions (benevolence, edification, etc.) any and every kind of organization or society is permissible, and may be instituted and supported by the churches, as for example, orphan homes, Christian colleges, hospitals, asylums, insurance companies, youth societies, old folks' homes, penal institutions, etc. No scripture was given, but it was a revealing commentary on the insidious and corrupting influence of the "sponsoring church" malignancy.