by Don Haymes
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
When preachers of the twentieth-century Churches of Christ come to quote the Gospels, they most often find their texts in Jesus' controversies with the Pharisees, especially Mark 7:1-23=Matthew 15:1-20, where Jesus alludes to Isaiah 29:13 LXX to draw a distinction between human and divine teaching. In this second of a series of passionate homilies published in the summer of 1963, Richard Nathaniel Hogan takes up the text he has used thousands of times against "denominational doctrine" and applies it to the teaching and practice of the "so-called Churches of Christ" on racial justice.
Christ never condemned anyone more severely than He condemned hypocrites. They pretended to have great love for the Lord, but in their works they denied Him. Jesus said of the hypocrites of our text that they honored Him with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him and their worship was but in vain. They taught for doctrine the commandments of men, they layed aside the commandments of God in order to hold on to their tradition. It must be agreed that we have the same kind of people in the Church of Christ today. They are the prejudice segregationist [sic] in congregations all over the Brotherhood whose hearts are filled with hate because of the color of another man's skin.
In the first place it is ignorance in the superlative degree. If God was pleased to make one man's skin, black another's red, another's yellow and another's pale, who are we to criticize the work of God? What right has man to make one color of skin superior to the rest? Where in the Bible do we read of the pale skin man being pointed out as the superior or super race?
Often we hear some crack-pot say that the Negro should go back to Africa. I ask, how can one go back where he has [5]never been? The American Negro can no more go back to Africa than the American white man.
Furthermore, the Indian is the only one who is an original American. All the rest originated in another country, they came here like the Negro, only they came free and the Negro was brought against his will. However, if the Irishman will go back to Ireland, the Englishman to England, the German to Germany, the Frenchmen to France and turn this country back over to the Indians, I am sure that the Negro will be willing to go back to Africa.
Some members of the church seem to think that they can completely ignore the golden rule as given by Jesus and still go to go to heaven, but I have news for such persons: My friends, you haven't started toward heaven. Jesus said "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." Luke 6:13.
How many of these race-hating, superior-minded, self-centered hypocrites who are parading around as Christians would like to be treated as they are treating the Negro because of the color of his skin?
We want to especially commend Abilene Christian College, Lubbock Christian College, and the Christian College in Oklahoma City for the wonderful Christian spirit that they have shown the entire Brotherhood by removing the racial bars and have admitted the Negro into their schools, that they may prepare themsleves[sic] for the great work of saving the lost.
A Christian education is what the Negro wants and not just associating with the white man. As we have said before, the the Negro just wants to be the white man's brother in Christ and not his brother-in-law in the flesh. The first question the average white man ask [sic] is do you want your daughter to marry a Negro? In the first place, the Negro isn't interested in marrying the white man's daughter any more than the white man is interested in marrying the Negro's daughter and the second place is the fact that the white man doesn't seem to have any confidence in his daughter being able to take care of herself.
We just as well face it, it is just plain tradition that the white man is holding to and to hold to it he has to lay aside the commandments of God. But hear God's warning, Col. 2:8, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the TRADITION OF MEN, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." "But if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin." Jas. 2:9. We must gather TOGETHER, Matt. 18:20, work TOGETHER, II Cor 6:1, labor TOGETHER I Cor 3:9, we were quickened TOGETHER, raised up TOGETHER and made to sit TOGETHER in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, Eph. 2:5-6, we are to strive TOGETHER, Phil. 1:27. By this we become builded TOGETHER, Eph. 2:22, thus fitly TOGETHER vs. 21, our hearts are to be knit TOGETHER in LOVE, Col. 2:2, we then become PERFECTLY JOINED TOGETHER 1 Cor. 1:10 and if this we will do, finally we will be CAUGHT UP TOGETHER, 1 Thess. 4:17.
These articles are written with love in our hearts for all and hatred for none. However, we MUST reprove all who are guilty of turning a deaf Ear to the plain teaching of the word of God. God said "Reprove, rebuke and exhort.["] In Christian love.
--R. N. Hogan
Here the familiar rhetorical dichotomy between human precept and divine command takes an unexpected turn and finds its target close to home. Hogan knows his audience, and he is an evangelist, not a civil rights activist. Yet his concluding peroration, weaving "together" through the concordance a web of disparate prooftexts, will find a remarkable echo in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking to black and white on the Mall in Washington, 28 August 1963.
dhaymes, his mark +