Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 9
November 7, 1957
NUMBER 27, PAGE 5a,13b

Kentucky Bible Banner

Wm. E, Wallace, Owensboro, Kentucky

Kentucky Bible Banner is a small and neat four page monthly dealing with issues confronting the church. It is new, only three issues have appeared thus far. It is published and edited in Owensboro, Kentucky by this writer. Kentucky Bible Banner, though small and new, has a truth-thrust which has been felt in high places. The paper began with the design of reaching a small area around western Kentucky, but already its force is being felt clear to Nashville! It is surpassing our original design and intention relative to influence and effect.

The powerful and potent Gospel Advocate with its great circulation has paid respect to Kentucky Bible Banner. Sterl Watson, the bishop-preacher-executioner from St. Louis, felt compelled to write up the first issue of KBB. But Brother Watson did little more than accuse me of not telling the truth. I don't know why Brother Watson thought it necessary to get after an insignificant little fellow like me — but yes, I do know. Brother Watson has been after my hide since the Holt-Totty-Watson debate in Indianapolis in 1954, You see, during the course of that debate Brother Watson was attempting to destroy the parallel that Brother Holt had made between the Herald of Truth and the missionary society. Brother Watson was under terrific pressure. He said that a man and a mule are alike in many respects but not parallel — then he caught my eye, leaned down toward me and asked precariously, "Do you think I am a mule?" I just had to answer, "Amen!" The crowd roared in laughter and Brother Sterl was sterile in argumentation during the rest of that session. He has been looking my way with heavy eyebrows since that event.

In the Gospel Advocate of October 3, 1957 editor Goodpasture shows that he has felt the force of [the] Kentucky Bible Banner. In the September issue of Kentucky Bible Banner I reprinted an old article by Foy E. Wallace, Jr, entitled "The Truth Between Extremes" with my editorial comment: "The clarity and soundness of this article makes (make) it outstanding. Its appearance in this day of controversy should be timely." Editor Goodpasture printed some material from the old Bible Banner linking its editor with the support of a certain sponsoring church affair back in 1940. At the end of editor Goodpasture's editorial he uses my statement in closing, and tops it off with a near hysterical emphasis - - !!! (sic). Well, KBB seems to be getting through.

I think it well to include in this article for editor Goodpasture's benefit, and for others of like interests, what the editor of the old Bible Banner had to say in 1950 in Torch about past endorsements of certain type efforts:

It is to be admitted that these extremes in this so-called cooperation have slipped up on us all. Most of us in the past have acquiesced in cooperation plans, one way or another, and have said things that may be taken as past endorsement of what is presently being done. But it has developed into something that was not expected. Even the brethren who have assayed to come to the defense of the central sponsors are now conceding that this cooperation thing may be carried to extremes. That being true, it really becomes their duty to point out when and how these churches may practice the extremes they concede to be a possibility. If they are not already doing so, I confess a loss to know how they could do so. If it has not already gone to an extreme when would it, and how could it? When the conceded extreme is named, and an attempt made at an argument on it, the conclusions will contradict the premises, (Torch, September 1950, pages 25-26)

Now I do not quite understand what sort of journalistic ethics editor Goodpasture believes in, but as for me if I were to print something like editor Goodpasture's remarks on the purported Knights of Columbus oath (Yeah, he printed the thing several years ago), I would also make mention of his apology to the Knights of Columbus and his retraction which appeared in another issue of the Gospel Advocate. And, looking at the matter from another angle, if I were to print what editor Goodpasture said when he first became editor of the Gospel Advocate about his policy of refusing to display local church disturbances over the pages of the Gospel Advocate I would also refer to his publicizing the Lufkin, Texas, trouble a few years ago.

Editor Goodpasture has had something to say about the "Dr. Thomas" thing more than once within the last few years. Dr. Thomas was a character of the last century who wanted Alexander Campbell to print his material on "Rebaptism " Campbell had good reason not to do so. Editor Goodpasture thinks he has good reason not to print any replies to certain back-sticking articles which come from the pens of his journalistic subordinates, But Campbell would not and did not attack without allowing reply. Campbell did not shut off Dr. Thomas for the same reason editor Goodpasture shuts off his adversaries. Editor Goodpasture is not a Campbell. His judgment is not Campbell's. His editorial policy is not parallel to Campbell's.

Alexander Campbell was a prince of a man, and I remember reading somewhere in an old Bible Banner where its editor referred to Brother Goodpasture as a "princely man." The same editor wrote a few years later: "If the Gospel Advocate thinks that it can afford to continue that course, they may have that field to themselves. The high-toned editor of the Advocate has been practicing in that line of late and should be able by now to entertain most any of his readers who like that kind of stuff " (Bible Baner, May, 1944). He was writing about the same policies which are pursued by the Gospel Advocate today.

Smoke Screen: There are some who set up a smoke screen of anti-orphan home and anti-cooperation falsehoods behind which they plot a course of subtle action much in the same way Soviet Russia blows up a smoke screen of so-called American "colonization and aggression." Soviet Russia is quite frequently throwing false charges behind which she moves to seduce and reduce sovereign nations to satellite states. The charges seen in various articles by certain brethren are much like the charges of the owners of the soothsayer girl in Acts 16. The owners charged Paul and Silas with crimes amounting to insurrection and sedition knowing that such charges would be more apt to arouse official and public indignation than the mere complaint that a freak girl had been healed of an affliction. It is hard to say things like this without appearing to impugn the motives and honesty of some folks. Yet, if we were met with fair play and equitable opposition from certain liberal elements in the brotherhood, then we would have less reason to suspect the intentions and activities of certain individuals and papers which hold influential positions.

Back to Kentucky Bible Banner: It is small in circulation but it is getting bigger. If you want to get on the mailing list we will send it to you free of charge — but you will be more apt to get it regularly if you send a donation along with your name and address to Kentucky Bible Banner, 113 West 17th Street, Owensboro, Kentucky. And while you are at it, renew your subscription to the Gospel Guardian — this paper will go down in history as a mighty effort to help stay the hand of digression, The Gospel Guardian began when the old Bible Banner ended. "If the torch falls from the hand of one, it will never hit the ground, for the hand of another will bear it upward and forward. So help us God — they shall not pass!" (Foy E. Wallace, Jr., Bible Banner, May 1947).