The Making of History

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     It is our personal conviction that history is being made among the heirs of "the restoration movement" in these days. We do not believe that future chroniclers can fail to take note of things which are now transpiring. After almost a century of schism and division, of debate and dissension, hundreds are beginning to hope the trend will be reversed. There are inspiring signs that the party spirit is losing sway over the hearts of men and the Holy Spirit is working mightily within our generation to promote and produce peace. To this revival of the spirit of unity we have been devoting our feeble talents and dedicating our meager efforts.

     It is not easy to oppose a traditional attitude. All of us are averse to change. We are afraid of the unfamiliar. We shrink from the shock of modification of that which is hallowed by repeated practice. Some of the things we have been saying about fellowship and unity seem strange to the ears of those who have equated these with conformity and uniformity of opinion. They regard us as traitors to the cause. They think of us as enemies of "the Lord's church." It seems to us that you should be informed of this and should know what actions are being taken by us to placate and find common ground with our dissenting brethren. We are not working under cover and what we do is not being done in a corner. We shall share with you in this issue only one phase of the opposition.

     The Firm Foundation is a respectable journal of wide circulation within the non-instrument segment of the disciple brotherhood. It is edited by our genial and esteemed brother in the faith, Reuel Lemmons. Universally acclaimed for his knowledge and ability, his editorials are read with avid interest by thousands. His speeches and writings wield a powerful force in shaping thought and directing attitudes. His periodical provides a dynamic vantage ground for disseminating his views.

     It was about a year ago in his issue of April 3, 1962, that our distinguished brother directed an editorial against my position. The title was "Blind in One Eye" and in it he charged that I had completely lost sight of any former truth I held. He said, "He has swung from the extreme of the narrowest of sectarian spirits to the broadest cover-everything-stand-for-nothing liberalism." He described the plea that I make as "insidious error," "gross error," and "rank liberalism." He declared that it stemmed from "an erroneous premise" and said in his closing sentence, "Brother Ketcherside is blind in one eye--and if the blind lead the blind they both will fall into the ditch."

     In the intervening months as other articles directed against me were published, brethren who read Firm Foundation urged that I write my brother-editor and ask permission to state my views and reply to some of the things being said. I resisted

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the impulse to do so, contenting myself in publishing notice of the articles and urging the brethren to read them. Finally, at the suggestion of a number of younger preaching brethren in Texas and California, I wrote Brother Lemmons, on November 16, 1962, as follows:

     My dear brother in HIM: Recently in Firm Foundation a number of articles have appeared in which my name has been mentioned repeatedly. These articles have not been in review (except incidentally) of things which I have written in MISSION MESSENGER, but have purportedly been directed toward examination of a Concourse on Unity in which I was invited to participate as one of the speakers in Denver, Colorado.

     A goodly number of readers who are your friends and mine have suggested that I should request permission from you to set forth my views in Firm Foundation so that your readers may be informed of the things for which I contend. The articles which have been offered have not always represented me correctly. If you will permit me to file with you four articles on the subject of fellowship and related issues, I shall make no reference to any brother now living, but will deal with the matters purely as I see them. I will conduct myself as a gentleman and will write in love.
     If you will allow me to write and state my own conviction in the same paper which has so often referred to me by name, will you inform me of the maximum length of article which is acceptable? Should there be any doubt about advisability of printing four such articles will you leave it to your readers as to whether or not I should be heard? Enclosed you will find a stamped envelope for reply. With best wishes to you and yours, I am, Yours and HIS. --W. Carl Ketcherside.

     To the foregoing, our brother sent the following very gracious reply under date of November 27, 1962:

     Dear Brother Ketcherside: In reply to your letter of November 16, I want to say that I will be happy to allow you to be heard in the pages of the Firm Foundation. I think you should be. You know no editor would commit himself unequivocally until he has seen the material you wish to present, but I know of no reason why it should not be welcomed.
     Brother Ketcherside, your letter indicates that you feel you have been misrepresented in references to you in articles in the Firm Foundation. If you write these articles, I will expect you to point out where and how you have been misrepresented. I shall expect them to cite the quotations which misrepresented you, and show that either (A) You made no such statement. (B) That the quotation is taken out of context. That it has been given a meaning contrary to your own. (D) Explain what you did mean by the quotation.
     Brother Ketcherside, you and I know that you could make in the Firm Foundation a very wonderful gesture saying a lot of good things and things which all of us believe. These things are well to say all right, but they leave the impression that anyone who would differ with you is out of his head. There are, I think, some very valid grounds for differences, and while one might agree with you on all the good things you could say, I shall not expect you to use the Firm Foundation for the same purpose as you use the MISSION MESSENGER. I will be happy to allow you to be heard concerning anything in which you think you have been misrepresented, but I would want you to deal with those points. That, of course, does not limit the articles to those things only, but it would not be profitable to give the articles entirely to things all sensible christians thoroughly agree without facing up to the things on which we disagree.
     As to the length of the articles, they should not exceed three pages double spaced with fairly narrow margins as this is what is required for one page in the Firm Foundation. I try to limit, as you know, articles in the Firm Foundation to one page in length.
     I leave immediately for South America and will be returning December 20, if you need that information. Yours in the Faith, Reuel Lemmons.

     I prepared the first two articles which I titled "The Scattered Flock" and "Walking Together." On December 20, I mailed them with this letter:

      My dear Reuel: "Grace, mercy and peace, be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
     According to your gracious letter of November 27, this is the day upon which you planned to arrive home from your long and arduous journey. I have been praying that His providence would so coincide with your program as to enable you to carry it out upon schedule, and I will be deeply grateful when I learn that such was the case. Realizing that you are returning to a desk piled high with mail, I am reluctant to offer a lengthy reply to yours of November 27, yet "I beseech you, of your clemency, to hear of me these few words" which I send in conjunction with the first two articles I am submitting.
     I have sought to place myself in your position as editor and have written accordingly. It has been my intention to conform to the suggestions and restrictions set forth in your letter, without engaging in any reflection upon the brethren who have so frequently spread my name upon the pages of your esteemed

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journal. I want to lessen tensions, not promote them; to plead for peace and not for personal vindication. You suggest the possibility of my using the paper in such a manner that I would leave the impression that anyone who would differ with me was out of his head. To avoid any accusation of ulterior motive, I have tried to be frank and positive while, at the same time, maintaining that attitude of courtesy and restraint which seems to me to best become the profession we make.
     Reuel, it is not necessary that you concur with what I write to be revered and respected as my brother in Him who died for the sins of us both. I love you very dearly in Him, and I want to labor with you, as you can permit in good conscience, to promote His will on earth as it is done in heaven. Because I am answerable unto Him I must be free in regard to conviction, and I am certainly willing to allow you the same freedom I claim for myself. There are areas of difference between us but there is nothing which either of us holds which is as important as the blood He shed and His love which holds us both.
     I am not editing a rival journal to Firm Foundation. I would not expect to use your paper for the same purpose that I use MISSION MESSENGER. I am fully cognizant that we serve different areas and segments and that there will be some conflicts. But the circle of His love is great enough to encompass both of us with our respective missions without our being rivals. For that reason I cordially invite you to feel free at any time to submit any article which you deem to be profitable for the readers of our little periodical. We will gladly give it our earnest consideration. I recognize how meager and feeble is our effort in contrast with your own, but each of us must labor in the sphere and role in which divine destiny has cast him. I find it no problem at all to rejoice with joy unspeakable in that greater realm of service to which you have been called.
     I shall, within the week, submit two additional articles, to make up the four to which I referred in my previous letter. I trust that they will meet the requirement for publication even though they may not merit your approval in content. Allow me to wish for you a happy and prosperous coming year and with very sincere good wishes and prayers for you and yours, to be as ever, Yours and HIS, Carl.

     Within the next week I prepared the next two articles under the titles "The Concerned Ones," and "Receive Him Not Into Your House." These I mailed on December 29, with the following letter:

     My dear brother in HIM: "Grace, mercy and peace, be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
     I have the honor, through your courtesy and graciousness, to submit the other two articles about which I wrote to you earlier. I have sought to present these in such a spirit as would commend them to your consideration and that of your readers, even those who will disagree with what I have written. It has been my intention to imitate the apostle in giving "no offense to the church of God."
     You will recognize at once, I am sure, that these articles can lay no claim to greatness, either as respects content or literary method. I do not have the poignant power of expression, nor possess the trenchant pen, with which you have been blessed. I do have a great love for all of my brethren in the Lord who will be reading these things through your gratuitous spirit, and unseen and unknown as they will be to me, I pray ever so eagerly and earnestly as I post these to you that somehow, someway, the Holy Spirit may take this feeble effort and use it to the furtherance of His kingdom among men.
     It may seem to you presumptuous that I should again suggest to you that if you ever have anything you should like to address to our readers the opportunity is tendered to you to do so, in love. I realize the fact full well that our little journal is quite insignificant in every way in comparison to Firm Foundation, and when I read of journals edited by the brethren which seek to increase their circulation by some 25,000 names, I think how honored I would feel if that were our total circulation. However, there is a possibility that we may reach a different audience than you do, small though it may seem to you, and if your heart burns within you with a message which you should like to convey to these which represent many different factions and segments of the Christian realm, I will be pleased to offer them what you have to say which will draw us closer to the divine ideal.
     One word more. I trust there will be no serious repercussion from any because you have allowed me to be heard in your columns. It is my prayer that His Spirit will so infect our beings with the attitude of equity and mercy that we shall become increasingly more willing to hear each other as time goes on. I close with the hope that the divine blessing shall be granted you in the coming year, and that all of us will be drawn a little closer to each other by being drawn closer unto HIM. May His grace sustain you in all good things unto His glory. Carl.

     A good many weeks elapsed after I sent the first two articles, and finally on February 9, I received them all back, with the following letter:

     Dear Brother Ketcherside: I have had your articles for a month now, and have studied them carefully. The more I study them the plainer it is that you have not complied with

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the second paragraph or my letter of November 27.
     I am returning them to you. In the first place, you can write a much better series of articles. In the second place, these do not deal directly with the criticisms of you; but rather, state a host of good things with most of which every fair-minded person in the brotherhood would agree. On most of the points upon which you touched, you have never been criticized.
     In accord with the third paragraph of my letter, I am still willing for you to be heard through the Firm Foundation. Both I and others have had critical things to say of your position. I most assuredly would not deny you the right of answering your critics. But when your articles appear in the Firm Foundation, I want them to be an attempt at least to answer your critics. If you wish to answer the "charges frequently made" in accord with paragraph 2 of my letter, then I will gladly give the space.
     The articles I am returning leave the impression that some minor little points are, at most, all brethren could criticize you for. I will gladly give you space to say that you do not believe the things you have been charged with believing, and that you do not hold the positions you are charged with holding. All the brotherhood would be glad to see that.
     The door is still open in accord with my former letter. Yours in the Faith, Reuel Lemmons.

     On the same day that I received the articles back, I again wrote to my esteemed brother as follows:

     My dear brother in HIM: Thank you for your graciousness in returning the manuscripts. Due to the long interval elapsing I was reconciled to the fact that you did not intend to publish them, and was awaiting a communication stating why you would refuse to do so.
     I have also carefully studied them again and the more I do so, the plainer it becomes that I did comply with the second paragraph of your letter of November 27. I set forth quotations which misrepresented me and I showed (1) that they were given a meaning contrary to my own; (2) I explained what I meant by the quotation. In the instance of the last article I actually answered a question proposed by a brother who was writing about my position on 2 John 9, 10. I feel quite certain that my articles did deal directly with criticisms of me and of my position.
     Brother Lemmons, I sought in an amicable spirit to answer my critics within the space you gave me. It seems obvious that I must allow you to determine the nature of the defence I make, if I am to be heard in the columns of Firm Foundation. I cannot allow you to write my articles for they must be expressions of my own heart and life. I sought to make those I submitted just that, and wrote the best that I knew how to write.
     I think the most significant statement in your last letter is that the articles I submitted "state a host of good things with most of which every fair-minded person in the brotherhood would agree. On most of the points upon which you touched, you have never been criticized." It is a genuine pleasure to me to know that these articles generally represent the thinking of the fair-minded members of the brotherhood, and hereafter when I find brethren disagreeing with most of what I expressed in the articles I shall conclude that they are not "fair-minded persons" by your definition.
     May the grace of God, the love of the Lord Jesus, and the fellowship of the Spirit, abide with you and yours is the humble prayer of yours and His, Carl.

     We are taking the liberty of presenting the articles rejected by our brother. We do this for several reasons. (1) We want the brethren who urged us to write to the Firm Foundation to know that we tried and to see what we submitted. While we regret that readers of the Firm Foundation will not see our replies, we believe that our own readers are entitled to see them. (2) Brother Lemmons says that these "state a host of good things" and we would not want you to be deprived of any good thing contained in them. (3) Our good brother also states that "every fair-minded person in the brotherhood would agree" with most of the things they contain, so they can be considered as a statement in general (not in every particular) of those things for which Brother Lemmons and other fair-minded brethren would contend. (4) The material covered in these articles is evaluated by our brother as containing

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"some minor little points" which have never been the subject of criticism. You will observe that the first article deals with the nature of fellowship, the second with a controversial Old Testament scripture, the third with the nature of the church, and the fourth with a controversial New Testament scripture.

     For the benefit of our readers who would like to subscribe for the Firm Foundation, let us mention that the mailing address is Post Office Box 77, Austin 61, Texas. The subscription price is four dollars per year in advance, and the paper is issued weekly. We are certain that the editor would appreciate your reaction to the articles.

     In recent months we have made it a subject of our entreaty at the throne of mercy that we might be so guided and influenced by the indwelling Spirit as to allow our "speech to be always seasoned with salt so that we may know how to give answer to every man." If we have fallen short of the ideal in this issue, will you please forgive us and join in prayer that we may grow in grace as well as in knowledge of the truth. We want to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We can best serve our Father by being kind to His other children. Pray for us that we may be fair and just to all.