"The Spiritual Sword"
(Editor's note: This article goes to the heart of Brother Warren's dishonest and unscrupulous treatment of the writings of others. He has illogically drawn certain conclusions from statements made by Cogdill - - - - and then has dishonestly charged Cogdill with holding to and advocating these illogical deductions. The first mistake may be due to bad logic on Warren's part; the second mistake can be due only to a lack of Christian ethics. It is inexcusable in any Christian, and doubly reprehensible in one who professes to preach the gospel of Christ.)
It still seems strange to us that a religious publication claiming to be the "Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God" could be so devoid of scriptural references. Its editor, Brother Thomas B. Warren, devoted the entire June issue of his "Spiritual Sword" to statements taken from articles and debates of James Adams and Roy Cogdill, attempting to prove that Adams and Cogdill carry their opponent's arguments to their logical and ultimate conclusions when their opponents are Baptists, yet refuse to accept certain "logical and ultimate conclusions" that Warren attributes to them.
If Brother Warren is going to continue to call this latest "revelation" by a rearranged descriptive title which God gave His own Word, he should at least respect the Author of the Bible enough to empty his paper of shouts of "inconsistency" and "mis-representation" and fill it with Bible teaching instead.
Brother Warren has somewhat to say about Adams' article beginning on the front page of the Gospel Guardian, April 3, 1958, entitled, "Thomas B. Warren's Mis-representations of the Birmingham Debate." In the June issue of the Spiritual Sword, Brother Warren quotes a paragraph or two from Brother Adams.
"Brother Warren says that Cogdill's position in the Birmingham debate was that it is unscriptural for one church to send a New Testament to another church; for one church to let another church use chairs for a Vacation Bible School; for one church to let another church use a tent for a tent meeting; for one church to send tracts to another church; and for one church to send funds to another church to build a meeting house. (See THE SPIRITUAL SWORD" January, 1958, page 8) "Brother Cogdill said none of these things in the debate. All of those statements are Warren's own deductions."
Brother Warren proceeds to give example after example of Brethren Adams and Cogdill using the logical and ultimate conclusions of their opponents arguments, when their opponents are Baptists. Brother Warren even seems to be a pretty good cartoonist. He opens the June issue with an amusing cartoon about "gospel preachers A and C" debating Baptists, and then "gospel preachers A and C" debating "other gospel preachers." At least he admits "A" and "C" are gospel preachers!
But there is one significant statement made by gospel preacher "A" that preacher "W" does not quote. In the paragraph just preceding the one that Warren quoted, Brother Adams said, "The Brother (Warren) has a veritable mania for fastening on to an opponent his own deductions from the opponents' arguments. TO CHARGE A THING AS A CONSEQUENCE LOGICALLY DEDUCIBLE FROM AN OPPONENT'S ARGUMENTS IS ONE THING. TO REPRESENT SUCH AS A POSITION ACTUALLY ASSUMED BY AN OPPONENT IS ANOTHER."
(Emphasis mine, JHT.)
It is our conviction that Brother Warren did not leave the scripture references out of his paper due to a lack of space, for he could have saved all that space he used trying to prejudice people against gospel preachers "A" and "C," had he only quoted this statement from gospel preacher "A". It would have explained the whole matter.
It may well be that to the mind of logician "W" these 'extreme views" he has ascribed to Cogdill are the logical and ultimate conclusions of Brother Cogdill's position, but that doesn't give Brother Warren the right to say that Cogdill took these positions at the Birmingham debate. Notice the following:
"He (Cogdill, at the Birmingham debate) even occupied the position that it is wrong for one church to send a New Testament to another church" (Emphasis mine, JHT.)
"The one purpose of this article is to attempt to help brethren to understand the positions of the anti-cooperation brethren. The world needs to know that these brethren hold:
1. That a church can not render assistance to another church in spiritual matters, which means
(1) That a church cannot help another church to build a meeting house;
(2) That a church cannot send a New Testament to a church. (Emphasis mine, JHT.)
And Brother Warren even sheds crocodile tears, crying "Inconsistency" and "misrepresentation". Such is beneath the dignity of a Christian, much less a gospel preacher. We leave the reader to guess why Brother Warren filled the pages of his "Sword" with such statements as these.
We personally feel that the true "Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God," the scriptures that were inspired by the Holy Spirit, are much more interesting to study than those that were "inspired" by preachers "W" and "D". Brethren, these scriptures came not from Heaven, but from Fort Worth!