The Overflow
No scripture needed
For some time now it has been increasingly apparent that brethren promoting the institutions have realized they could not produce any scriptural authority for the projects. But only lately have they become bold enough to declare that they don't need any scripture. Here is a quotation from Brother Don Rudd, ardent champion of Herald of Truth, in his debate last year with Lloyd Moyer: "Somebody says, Brother Rudd, you have not produced the scripture (i. e. for Herald of Truth). You don't have to have scripture to prove something as simple as Herald of Truth. Anybody with one eye and half-sense can see that!"
"The end justifies the means"
That The promoting brethren have really gone off the deep end in their efforts to foist their projects on the brotherhood can be seen from this wild statement made by Brother Roy Osborne in his debate last year with Lloyd Moyer: "Even if it were wrong to send a boy or a girl down there (to Boles Home), and I would go to hell for sending them, I would send him just the same if I knew he would come out of there a Christian." Does it sound familiar to you old-timers? The way it was stated in the 1890's was, "We like the organ, and we are going to have it; we'll die and go to hell before we will give it up." They did.
Second prize
Business men in West Texas have been given so many hot checks by one of the dynamic young promoting brothers among us that this grim little joke is going the rounds: "The local charity ran a raffle. First prize was $10.00. Second prize was Brother Promoter's check for $1,000.00."
From central Texas
Then there was the church in central Texas who wrote one of the foreign missionaries (so he reports in his newsletter) that they would have to cease their support of him "because we are helping to get a new congregation started here in ________. We are going to send 80 to100 members to the new work, and the other church here in the city is going to send 50 or 60; and we hope that within two or three years the new church can be self-supporting!'
Distinctly
A group of preachers at a lectureship not too long ago were busily engaged in their favorite past-time of tearing apart the editor of the Gospel Guardian. They tore and tore and tore, until finally one bystander could endure it no longer. "Those things simply are not true," he protested. "But they are," replied the ringleader, "I remember his very words as distinctly as if he had actually said them."
Concerning truths
"There are few truths which have not had to run the gauntlet of controversy; and those truths are our possession today solely because there happened to be men who, while they loved peace, would not part with conviction though the holding to it meant war."
— John Urquhart Making wrong right
"Neither the authority of years, the weight of numbers, nor the intensity of sincerity can make a thing right if it is fundamentally wrong to begin with."
— Marcus Aurelius One way to do it
A few years ago we had word from one of our subscribers saying that she tried to get the Gospel Guardian first each week and hide it before her husband got a chance to see it. It invariably made him so mad to read it that he hit the ceiling every time he saw an issue, and knocked holes in the plaster. Well, that's one way to get plastered without going out!
Abe Lincoln
There seems to be an almost pathologic eagerness on the part of some brethren to "claim" famous (or even notorious) people as members of the Church of Christ. Well, now they can add Abe Lincoln to the roster. Here is a note from the Christian Evangelist of July 8, 1957: "Lincoln did not formally belong to any church, but he did say that he would join a church which would inscribe over its altar as its sole qualification of membership, 'Thou shalt love 'the Lord thy God ...and thy neighbor as thyself.' Some years ago, a unique service was held by Dr. Edward Scribner Ames at the University Church of Disciples of Christ in Chicago, admitting the spirit of Abraham Lincoln to fellowship in that congregation on this basis."
Time to quit
The editor of a well-known gospel journal (not this one - not yet) had so many worries, problems, and frustrations that he fell into the habit of talking to himself almost incessantly. It finally got on the nerves of the office force so badly that one of them approached the boss about it. "Boss," he said bluntly, "let's face it; you've had it; you're cracked." "Why?" said the boss angrily. "Talking to myself doesn't mean I'm crazy." "No, that doesn't," agreed his friend, "but, Boss, you listen ... "
The passing years
A few weeks ago, the editor's son, Jefferson David Tant, was in Atlanta, Georgia, and visited the Glenwood Hills congregation. Being introduced to a certain brother, he was asked, "Are you any kin to the elderly gentleman named Tant who held us a meeting last year?" Alas! is it possible that the same one who only six short years ago was dubbed by Brother Showalter as "young editor Yater" is now referred to as "the elderly gentleman?" How much longer until he will be wearing his father's sobriquet of "old Brother Tant." Tempus does fidget!
Committing suicide
We grieve to see a gospel preacher (as is happening right now to some we know) turn modernist. But we grieve more to see such brethren try to take whole congregations along with them down the liberalistic trail. Why can't they be willing just to ship-wreck their own faith, and not ruin the lives of many others? It reminds us of the frustrated, unhappy man who ran out of his psychiatrist's office, jumped into a taxicab, handed the driver a ten-dollar bill and commanded tersely, "Drive off a bridge somewhere. I'm committing suicide."
Not recovered
Then there was the man who asked his friend if his wife had recovered yet from her operation.
"No," came the grim reply. "She is still talking about it."