In 1974, Christian Standard introduced a column called “Reflecting on the
News!” The concept was straightforward, allowing much latitude for the writer.
Today’s article by John
Greenlee from October 1974 references “the expression of concern which came
this summer from Lausanne, Switzerland.” That seems a rather vague reference to
a newsworthy event, especially 45 years hence. Here’s a little background.
The International Congress on
World Evangelization—sometimes called Lausanne I, the Lausanne Congress, or
Lausanne ‘74—was held July 16-25, 1974, in Lausanne, Switzerland. The gathering
was called by a committee headed by Billy Graham and drew more than 2,300
evangelical leaders from 150 countries.
The theme of the congress was “Let
the Earth Hear His Voice.” The conference centered on discussion of the
progress, resources, and methods of evangelizing the world. The congress helped
illustrate the shift of Christianity’s center from Europe and North America to
Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
The gathering produced the
Lausanne Covenant, which promoted active worldwide Christian evangelism. After
the congress, the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization was established.
In 1974, Greenlee wrote six
columns for “Reflecting on the News!” The feature appeared in two issues monthly,
with three other writers supplying columns.
In this particular column, as
you’ll see, Greenlee spends very little time discussing Lausanne. Instead,
Greenlee referenced an early-1800s literary figure throughout this piece to
comment on a current (at the time) cultural event and how we are to think about
the Restoration Movement.
_ _ _
Reflecting on the News!
Oct. 13, 1974; p. 4
By John Greenlee
Rip Van Winkle didn’t know he’d
grown a long, white beard; or that his clothes were twenty years old. The
narrow lapels were a giveaway! Everyone else knew at a glance that Old Rip was
something out of another era. Imagine, a grown man with long hair!
It took Van a long time to
realize that he’d overslept . . . two decades worth.
He was sure the world had gone
haywire. He was OK, but everyone and everything around him had gone completely
bananas. A revolution had taken place. It was a whole new world from which the
familiar landmarks had disappeared. . . . He was . . . unable to grasp what had
happened to him or the world he had lived in. . . .
Perhaps Washington Irving was
merely telling an interesting story out of Catskill mountain folklore. Perhaps.
But maybe he was saying something else. Something like: Neither a man nor an
idea can be transplanted unchanged from one era to another without an awareness
of the “revolution” which is always taking place. The man may be admirable or
the idea may be valid. But clothed in ancient garb and a long beard, either one
may be pathetically out of touch with the “now.” Communication with the world
we live in requires acute awareness of the changes taking place in that world.
There aren’t many new ideas
around. A few, but not many. The Campbells, B. W. Stone, et al, did not have a
new idea in restoring New Testament Christianity. That idea had been around for
centuries when our forefathers in the restoration movement arrived on the
scene. But Campbell and Company were without peer in their time.
European rationalism and
American frontier pragmatism of the latter eighteenth century were ingeniously
joined in the restoration movement as the vehicle for New Testament authority
in personal and corporate life in Christ. (Personally, I think Alexander
Campbell’s The Christian System
should be required reading for every Bible-college student . . . and probably
for the eldership of our local congregations!) These men knew of what, and to
whom they spoke. Not a narrow lapel among them!
I am convinced that a
crystallized “restorationism,” a denominational dogma like Rip Van Winkle’s old
clothes, would have been scorned and rejected by them. The principle, the ideal of
restoring the New Testament church is as valid in 1974 as it was in 1809.
But it’s no good trotting out
Rip Van Campbell unless we can get what he has to say updated to the orientation
and temper of our times. Take careful note, for instance, of the expression of
concern which came this summer from Lausanne, Switzerland: commitment to the
Word and the world. The security
blanket of “old time religion,” with its appeal to nostalgia and a world of
yesteryear, may be very gratifying to our sentimental yearnings. But no church
I know of really wants to go back to the “good old days.” To do so would be to
deny the needs of men and women who, once outside the church building, must
return to the world as it is. Rip Van Winkle faith won’t work in the crush of
the modern marketplace and home.
“Restorationism” is an anomalous
anachronism (To say nothing of being self-contradictory and out of date!). The
restoration idea is as new and fresh and timely as ever. The will of God and
the action of His Spirit were not completed in the nineteenth century. “Restorationism”
is as dead as a dodo. The perpetual restoration of God’s Word as all-sufficient
is very much alive.
The Word of God, the kingdom
of God, the gospel, are living, dynamic forces which always burst the old
wineskins. The Scripture is timeless and, therefore, always timely. The
restoration movement must always be a primary concern to God’s people. We may
fall into the torpor of Rip Van Winkle thinking, but God and His Word will not.
Irving says that after the
long snooze Rip Van Winkle spent his latter days sitting on the doorsill,
telling any who would listen of the old times ‘‘before the war.” Here was a man
living in a world that no longer existed; oblivious to the revolutionized world
in which he was living; unable to grasp the events or the thinking of the
present world. For him, it all ended long before.
Mr.
Greenlee is minister with University Christian Church, Manhattan, Kan.
_ _ _
In Edwin V. Hayden’s editorial
introducing “Reflecting on the News!” on Jan. 6, 1974, he wrote: “These
brethren [Fred P. Thompson, E. Ray Jones, Wilford F. Lown, and Greenlee] will
not need to be introduced to most of our readers. As preachers, teachers, and
writers knowledgeably committed to restoration principles, they have
established their right to be heard, and as delightfully perceptive
commentators they have gained for themselves a hearing.”
Of Greenlee specifically,
Hayden wrote: “Basic restoration principles, distinguished from tradition and
kept clear from current confusions, are the declared concern of John E.
Greenlee, who is in the sixth year of a second ministry with the West Side
Christian Church, Wichita, Kans. An omnivorous reader, avid observer, and
energetic commentator, Mr. Greenlee edits a church paper that is quoted,
pirated, and plagiarized, to the delight of its users and the irritation of its
originator. There’s nothing dull about a Greenlee column.”
Greenlee continued to write
six columns yearly for “Reflecting on the News!” through 1979. In 1980, he
wrote four more columns when the title of the feature was changed to “Reflections.”
That year, a total of 13 writers were enlisted by Sam E. Stone, who had become
editor in 1978. The “Reflections” column continued for three more decades, with
a different stable of writers chosen every year.
A biography for Greenlee that
was included with his Jan. 20, 1980, column noted that the Nebraska native was then
serving with First Christian Church of Conejo Valley, Thousand Oaks, Calif.
—Jim Nieman, managing editor, Christian Standard
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