Slander -- Gospel Advocate Style
In the September 25, 1958, issue of the Gospel Advocate, Brother Guy N. Woods made a vicious and vitriolic attack upon me, others associated with me in preparing the manuscript for the Birmingham debate, and the book published by the Gospel Guardian company — The Cogdill-Woods Debate. His attack was full, as his articles usually are, of falsehoods, perversions, vicious and bitter recriminations. It was headed — 'The Birmingham Debate — 'Gospel Guardian' Style" and was written in typical "Wood-villain — Gospel Advocate Style".
For a number of years The Gospel Advocate has had no kind word for, or shown any charitable feeling of brotherliness toward any of us who dared to stand in the way of the "Institutional Movement" for which that paper, its editor, and hired writers have been the advance guard and chief promoters. The complete hatred and bitter enmity of its editor for all who dare oppose its position and policies has been apparent to all honest and unprejudiced minds who have perceived its course or paid any attention to its pages. All over the country good brethren who used to read the "Advocate" have grown tired of its "rabble rousing" propaganda and have resented its "control or destroy" dictatorial attitude, and have ceased to read it. Men who once wrote for its pages but who have refused to bow to its creed and do obedience to its idols or fall at the feet of its "pope", B. C. Goodpasture, have either withdrawn from any use of its pages or have been "excommunicated".
Goodpasture, for he is "The Advocate", has exercised every power and advantage at his command to bring under his control not only the congregations who have joined "on the march" with him, but every school, "orphan home" of every kind, and every other paper published by brethren. If he is defied by any who dare to differ with him, he uses the pages of his paper to cut them down and destroy them. In his own esteem when he decides that a thing is true, it becomes a "papal edict" at which every preacher and writer must bow or be "excommunicated", "quarantined" or ruled out by a "creed in the deed".
Look At The Record:
1. The vicious attempt to destroy Foy E. Wallace, Jr. via the Hardeman revival of the former pre-millenialist usage of the bankruptcy incident. This was occasioned because Brother Wallace opposed the Advocate drive to put the schools in the budgets of all the churches about twelve years ago.
2. The front page featuring of the slanderous lies told and printed concerning the unfortunate "Lufkin Incident's in an effort to destroy me because I stood with Foy Wallace in the school fight and had undertaken to help him keep "The Bible Banner" alive through which to oppose such ungodly tactics as well as such unscriptural movements as supporting the schools out of the church treasury.
3. The use of the Gospel Advocate pages by J. M: Powell, brother-in-law of Goodpasture, to blacken and besmirch the West End Church and its preacher, Kenneth Fielder, because of their opposition to the liquor crowd in a liquor election in Franklin, Tennessee.
4. The propaganda drive editorially in the Advocate to "quarantine" and thus intimidate all the preachers of the brotherhood who refused to "line up" on the institutional issues in support of all human institutions of every kind and all the "brotherhood-wide" promotions of ambitious elders and preachers. This came in the form of a "suggestion" from some "brain-washed" elder of an "on the march" church. It was adroitly printed as a suggestion but evidently had editorial approval.
5. The refusal to allow men of long standing connection with the Advocate such as C. D. Plum and Roy H. Lanier to express their convictions through its pages because a "brotherhood censorship" was sought by its editor and what they had to say didn't agree with his dictum.
6. The smothering and squelching through Advocate influence of any further discussion of the differences between the Firm Foundation and the Advocate. Poor Brother Lemmons had to let them have the last word and has meekly submitted to the hypocritical glossing over of the fundamental difference in the positions of the two papers all as the result of the institutional crowd being afraid that the "Guardian Boys", as they contemptuously express it, might be given an advantage. Even Roy Lanier was advised to let Guy Woods have the last word. Consequently the Firm Foundation has become a "me too," second rater, in the fight to put human institutions into the church.
7. The Advocate "confessional" featured for all who are weakened by such pressure that they are willing belatedly as "Johnnie come latelys" in Advocate parlance, to line up and get in the "march" and on the band wagon headed toward digression.
8. The even more recent feature of a bitter attack on the school at Tampa, Florida, and against its president personally by a former teacher turned liberal in more ways than on the institutional question. This came after the Advocate and its henchmen had done everything in their power by secret maneuverings to bring the Board of Trustees and the administration of this school under their control.
9. The still more recent appearance of on editorial containing a "creed in the deed" written by one of their well advertised legal advisers who is also the president of a school allied closely with the paper and who is one of the most liberal of all the promoters, A. C. Pullias. This is just some more of their pressure tactics.
10. The campaign to bring the membership of every congregation into its list of subscribers through Elders of "on the march" churches, featured in Advocate columns, falling for this promotional scheme to the point of paying for their subscriptions out of the church treasury in order to celebrate the Advocate "centennial drive". The fact is the Advocate today is a fledgling in so far as editorial policy and the position it occupies is concerned — as every one knows who has read it back through the years before it came to be the personal property of B. C. Goodpasture.
This list could be multiplied. How long will good, honest brethren who are sincerely trying to please God tolerate such a pernicious and malignant movement to have their endorsement and support?
We do not care to notice in particular much of what Brother Woods wrote about the debate. I will not enter into any attempt a self defense. They can say what they please about me personally and about the Gospel Guardian. I have no defense to make of either as such and it would be of no importance if I did. I decided a good while ago that anyone who would believe anything printed in the Advocate without having it established and corroborated from some other source either is careless about what he believes or is not much interested in the truth to begin with.
People who read what Guy N. Woods writes in the Advocate need to remember that Brother Woods is an "Advocate hireling" on Goodpasture's payroll and must either serve Goodpasture's interests or be fired. He should be fired anyway for making it so obvious that is what he is trying to do.
Brother Woods sneers at the fact that the Guardian publication is priced one dollar cheaper than the Advocate book. They sell theirs for five dollars and we are selling ours for four dollars. In fact we sold several hundred at three dollars each. In addition to that he should know that we mailed several hundred free to young preachers. Our object has not been to make money out of it. His idea is that the Advocate Book is worth more. We do not know why unless he thinks the name "Advocate" makes it worth more. That would depend with whom you were dealing. Then it may be that having "front billing" means that much to him since they call their book the "Woods-Cogdill Debate". Their excuse for this is not the alphabetical order, age, or any usual reason but in order to distinguish it from our book. Well I wonder why they named the other, debate the "Woods-Porter Debate". What were they trying to distinguish it from? Such is their brand of honesty — the fact is that Woods ego demanded satisfaction.
In mechanical makeup, paper, printing, binding, etc., there is no additional price justified. I will leave to the mind of any unbiased, disinterested party the question as to whether the mechanical makeup of our book compares favorably with theirs. The limber board or cloth binding of Advocate books in recent years indicates the softness of their attitude toward truth. The two books will speak for themselves mechanically.
Then there is no justification for the difference in price on the ground of a difference in preparatory cost of the two books. They were supposed to be printed from the same manuscript without either party doing any changing or correcting. They got a bargain in their manuscript. They paid the Guardian $120 for it. This was at one half of the cost of the first transcript. It did not include the cost of recording the debate. It did not include the cost of having the first transcript checked and corrected by the tapes. It did not include the cost of retyping the entire manuscript to get it ready for the printer. It did not include the cost of proofing each copy by the preceding one. All of this aggregated some $250 in which the Advocate didn't share. They seemed to think in our dissertations concerning printing the debate that I should furnish them a free copy of the manuscript. They made no offer to pay for it. I told Brother Woods during the debate that it would cost me $240 to get a transcript made and if I furnished the Advocate a copy they would have to pay half of the cost. About three weeks later I had a letter from him saying Goodpasture had agreed to pay $120. Even then they wanted me to send it on approval and they would pay if they decided to use it. I refused to deal with them on that basis since I would owe the transcriber for his time and work whether or not the manuscript was satisfactory. They finally agreed to pay if I would send them a copy.
I had not contemplated getting tapes of such poor quality but because of turning away from the recording microphone to the charts the speeches were hard to understand in places and much difficulty was experienced. This meant extra work and extra cost to get the manuscript ready. I did not ask Goodpasture to pay any part of this extra cost. Our manuscript cost us in the neighborhood of $375 while, theirs cost them $120. So the cost of preparing the manuscript would not justify the difference in price.
But Brother Woods charges that our book is inaccurate — that it contains errors — and that our book is not a true and accurate account of the oral debate. He alleges that we have deliberately "deleted" portions, "that the transcribers, in the employee of Brother Cogdill edited his speeches, as they were transcribing them, eliminating repetitious matter, clarifying them when the thought was obscure and otherwise polishing them: whereas in the writer's speeches not only was there no effort to smooth out rough and obscure statements, in many instances through omission of some words, addition of others, and frequent misapprehension of what was said, we are rendered unintelligible"
This is a pretty serious charge and to it in particular we want to pay our respects.
1. That this writer instructed anyone in his employ to make any changes, smooth out his speeches or delete any part of Brother Wood's is a complete falsehood, I did exactly the opposite. The transcribers and typists were told to be as accurate and faithful to the record as humanly possible. To this they will testify.
2. Brother Wesley Jones and his brother James, and Brother James Adams have all testified that they made an honest and sincere effort to get the speeches transcribed exactly as they were recorded. They made this statement under oath. If Guy Wood's charge has any foundation, they not only lied but have sworn to their lie and are thus guilty of both dishonesty and perjury. So far as I am concerned I would gladly take either of their word about anything without oath and put more confidence in it than I would Guy Wood's testimony under oath and I know great many more who feel exactly the same.
Brother Wood's charge against these good men is pure slander. He needs to repent of such a low, scurrilous attack upon them and apologize to them for it. It should be evident to anybody who knows all of these brethren that Guy Woods is the man who has not told the truth.
Be it remembered in this connection that these brethren did not claim their work to be error free and letter perfect. Be it remembered also that mistakes could have occurred both by the typists and the printers after the manuscript was completed by them. But in his venomous enmity Guy Woods cannot give any of his brethren who disagree with him and stand in his way any credit for an honest mistake. He has not charged these brethren with error alone but deceit and dishonesty and for the sake of a small bribe for such a crime. He is charitable in his attitude, isn't he?
3. Brother Woods seeks to make a play to arouse prejudice and destroy confidence by quoting from the first line of the publisher's preface these words, "This book is an exact reproduction of the oral speeches delivered by the principals in a six night debate in Birmingham, Alabama." In the use he makes of this statement he disregards the rest of the preface which is explanatory of this introduction- and then garbles another quotation made a little farther down in the preface, wresting and misapplying it entirely. This is the kind of treatment, and an example of the completely dishonorable attack he made on John T. Lewis during the debate. He introduced a chart with a notation on it of what Brother Lewis had said concerning Carroll Kendrick, commending him for giving up the missionary society, and tried to construe it as an endorsement of what Brother, Kendrick, had said in a book to which Brother Lewis made no reference whatever. The debate closed with this disrespectful, dishonorable attempt to discredit and misrepresent a man whose honor and integrity has never been questioned and who has always had the respect even of those who oppose him and differ with him, uncorrected in spite of the fact that it was exposed and I begged Brother Woods to apologize for it.
So it is in the preface, if Brother Woods had been fair in his use of it, he could have not used it to leave the impression that we claimed letter perfection for the book. Such usage is not honest ignorance of what was meant by the statement but deceitful trickery. The preface contains also this statement,
"These speeches were recorded on tape and transcribed therefrom and printed in this book without either speaker editing his speeches or making any corrections"
This part he quotes but why did he omit the rest of the statement?
"Thus we have hoped to bring to the reader as fully and as accurately as possible the exact debate as it occurred".
Would such a statement leave the impression that we claimed that the book is letter perfect? Not to any honest and reasonable mind, it wouldn't. But Brother Woods wanted to leave the impression that we had practiced trickery and chicanery on our readers and if possible destroy their confidence in us. He is far more adept at this kind of tactic than he is at making Bible argument in favor of what he tries to defend.
4. He would make his readers believe that I dealt with him unfairly when I did not make the corrections he wrote me about on May 15. But on this also the honest mind needs only the facts. I had not done the transcribing but had entrusted that to others with the commitment that the book would be printed from their manuscript without any corrections made by me. Brother Woods was free to edit and change the Gospel Advocate version of the debate all he wanted to for he had refused" to sign a contract with me giving both parties the right to publish the debate without any editing or corrections being made. After three months or more of correspondence trying to get him to agree to the publication of the debate, I sent him a contract about a week before the debate providing the above arrangement for its publication and told him that he could sign it or not as he wished and give it to me during the debate, but notifying him at the same time that I intended to publish the debate and he would have to go to court to stop me from doing so and we would see if he could do it there. It was under this situation that he reluctantly agreed for the debate to he published by both publishing houses. Until that time he had refused for the reason that "no one will make any money out of it", if both publishing houses publish it. You can see where his and Goodpasture's interest is in the matter. I told him that I didn't expect to make any money out of it and didn't care whether anyone did or not, that I wanted it put in print so people could read and study it.
Our correspondence will reveal (four months of it before propositions signed) that Brother Woods did not want to hold the debate that was held; that he did not want the book to be published, unless the Gospel Advocate could make considerable profit out of its publication: that he willfully withheld his charts, not only during the debate but for nearly six months afterward, with me begging him in every letter for a copy of them.
Concerning the corrections which he wanted made if I had done any changing without the approval of the transcribers, it would have made it impossible for them to verify their work without the tapes being sent back to them to be rechecked.
I could not verify the errors Brother Woods had alleged without checking it by the tapes. If these corrections were to be made, it would require a complete check and correction of the entire manuscript to be fair with both parties and that would really have caused an "interminable delay" in time.
Then the errors alleged are neither vital or major in any sense as his article would allege and infer. Let us look at them:
1. In one place (page 354) during an exchange when he was making a speech, challenged me to take a minute of his time to answer a question which I had already answered but which he charged I had not, both of us were talking and the transcribers found it impossible to understand all that either of us said. They indicated by the familiar dots (... .) that some words were being omitted that both of us had said. I have not checked our tapes from which the transcript was made to see if they are discernible but evidently the transcribers could not make them out. Brother Woods goes into a rampage because three words-- "money for evangelism was omitted from one of his sentences and declares that this omission makes him unintelligible. Well, the whole exchange is about that, and if that made him unintelligible, either the reader could not get the sense of what he was saying or else it had no sense to it. If that omission is fatal, then his point, if he had any, would not have stood anyway. Of course, he makes no comment on the fact that the same exchange omits some of what I said also. That is of no importance to him and would destroy his charge of unfairness. During the debate what I said was not important to him. He could neither quote it fairly or answer it honestly.
2. In another alleged error (page 189), of which he makes so much ado about a half of one sentence was missed. In this portion Brother Woods was reading off, at a very rapid rate, a list of alleged inconsistencies which his Fort Worth brain trust had concocted to help him out. They were not important enough in the discussion to take time to make them clear and discernible to the audience. Neither were they important enough to give me a list of them, the only way I could possibly have answered them. He they wanted them in the book and that half of a sentence is vital! Who can believe it?
3. In still another place (page 131)., he cries because a statement or two he made been missed. But in this instance the most of what he alleges was so dishonestly "deleted" occurs in the very same paragraph — such as "where is the needy private home on this chart? Where is it, sir?" (page 130) So the sense (?) is not changed by the omission at all nor his contention weakened, if it could have been any weaker.
Such charges are puerile and childish and calculated only to arouse prejudice so people will not read the book, or if they just have to read it, maybe they will buy it from the Advocate at their high price and pour some more profit into the pocket of Goodpasture! The fact is Guy Woods did not want the debate published as anyone could see from our correspondence, and now that it is published and he couldn't help it, he doesn't want people to read it, and for that I don't blame him particularly, for his utter abandonment of Bible argument for human sophistry, his complete dishonesty in denying his changes, as well as his appalling ignorance of the law is thoroughly evidenced along with his disregard of honest and fair treatment of an opponent. People who can read this debate — either version — without seeing these have their minds so prejudiced they are not reading honestly.
I have not checked our tapes to see if these missing lines are discernible or understandable am sorry that they are not in the book so Brother Woods would want people to read it — as many as possible. As matters stand he is willing for people to read the debate only if the Gospel Advocate Company can sell it. He tells us that it means nothing to him financially. Well, maybe it doesn't directly, but it does to his boss, B. C. Goodpasture, who pays him, and he must write what Goodpasture wants written and only that with which he will agree or get fired.
When Guy Woods objected to both of us printing the book on the ground that "no one will make any money out of it" and insisted that the Gospel Advocate Company have the sole right to it as they did the debate with Brother Curtis Porter, I refused for two reasons, (1) The Advocate Company is not entitled to all the consideration in such matters, and 2) Curtis Porter had to fight them to prevent them from "deleting" a whole paragraph from one of Brother Wood's speeches. Woods made the charge that Brother Porter had read only a part of a letter when in fact he had read it all. Guy admitted that it was a false charge when he examined the manuscript and wanted to delete it because the charge was false and he had been wrong. I have a copy of the correspondence if he denies this. I did not want treatment of this kind or trouble with them over the book.
I have not seen the Gospel Advocate version of the debate and do not intend to give Goodpasture $5 if I never see it. I do not know anything about its contents or how many "deletions" and how many changes or how much "smoothing" Guy did on his speeches in their version. But if he deleted from their edition the misrepresentation he made of a Tennessee statute which had been repealed for four years; and the misrepresentation he was guilty of in falsely imputing an endorsement of an unscriptural position to John T. Lewis; the utterly dishonest denials he made of having made any change in position; and all of the other blunders he made and dishonesty he showed, it is a puny book. If Curtis Porter had not caught the deletion made by Woods from the Indianapolis debate it would have gone through. You can't trust these brethren to treat you honorably and fairly. They have to be made do it. That is, unless you will worship at their altar and they will then feed you on sweet cream — but it curdles and turns sour before touching my lips.
Another error alleged by Brother Woods is that our book has the word "preacher" instead of "devil in one of his illustrations. Well, this isn't so much of a blunder. He should read that the devil "transforms himself into an angel of light" sometimes and his ministers into "servants of righteousness". Maybe Woods unwittingly used an illustration that was more illustrative of himself than he intended it to be. (II Cor. 11:14-15.)
We would not justify the errors — whatever are in the book published by us. We are sorry that they are there. We put an errata in our book correcting them, when they are verified. We do not believe the Advocate it book is letter perfect. In fact, we have word from one brother already who has already checked both books by his own tapes and he tells us that ours is much more accurate than theirs. This can be verified. But I want everybody to read the debate for themselves instead of taking the misrepresentations of Tom Warren and the feeble judgment of the Advocate book reviewer. Buy it from the Advocate and pay the extra dollar if you wish, but read the book and when you have finished ask yourself the questions "Who relied upon the Word of God to prove his position? Who stayed with the propositions and relied upon the Bible for evidence? Who refused to discuss the proposition and turned to confusing side issues and human sophistry and cartooning for his proof ?" If you cannot readily see this difference between Brother Woods and myself in this discussion, you have wasted your time and money when you bought the book.
Woods Falsehoods
Brother Woods was guilty of several outright falsehoods in his article. He should have known that these would be evident.
1. He attributes to us "interminable delay" during which he says, "We virtually gave up hope of receiving a manuscript from Brother Cogdill". While Brother Woods was being so patient and we were doing everything in our power to get the manuscript ready, he wrote and charged us with intentional delay. This story was put out in Nashville. He also charged that we had already delivered the manuscript to our printer. Now that he knows such was unjust and false he has offered no apology. He was so afraid that we would get our book out first and sell a few more copies that he almost got hysterical! Even then it took very little longer, if any, than it took them by themselves to bring out the Porter-Woods debate — or is it the Woods-Porter debate? The fact is, of course, I mailed Brother Woods the manuscript the day after I received it from the typist. So he has been uncharitable and unjust in that and the inference that we were guilty of withholding or intentionally delaying is completely false.
2. Brother Woods charges that I withheld the manuscript until he sent me his charts. Here again he resorts to falsehood and deceit. Here are the facts easily verified by the correspondence between us.
(1) Brother Woods and Brother Warren failed during the debate to give us copies of about 27 of their so called charts (I call them cartoons) when they were duty bound to do so. We gave them reproductions of all of ours during the debate.
(2) Almost immediately after the debate I wrote Brother Woods and offered him photographs of my charts to make his plates from if he wanted them. I asked him for a copy of his charts which he had not given me. It took me more than five months to get them and I got them only when I told him I would not send the when it was ready unless he sent me a copy of his charts which I didn't have. I did not hold up the manuscript a single moment for, about four days before I mailed to him, I got a copy of his charts. You have to make him do what you get out of him that is right.
(3) Weeks after the debate Brother Warren wrote for a copy of one of our charts which had been misplaced. He wrote Brother Adams, not me, and Brother Adams sent it to him immediately, with my consent, and asked him to send us the copies of theirs which they had not given us. Brother Warren refused. This is the kind of spirit they always manifest.
3. Brother Woods infers that I was obligated to pay for half the cost of having the charts engraved and that I refused to do this. What he doesn't tell his readers is that I wrote him and told him we were printing our book offset (a different type of printing than the Advocate employs) and would have no use for engraved cuts — hence to pay half of the Advocate cost of engraving would be to make an unwarranted donation. A man who will withhold from his readers such information in order to misrepresent and misuse facts will do anything to accomplish his purpose. This is the reason, so he says, that he would not send me his charts. Why didn't he give me a copy of them when he was supposed to do so — during the debate — and we would not have had to beg him for them for five months.
He infers that we did not reproduce his charts as often as the Advocate book and then makes the excuse that they didn't know where to place my charts in their book. That would not have been difficult if they had been interested in knowing. I did not use but 16 and it would be impossible to become confused as to which chart I referred to if the speech was read.
He complains that some of his charts were placed in the back of the book which we published. Well we could not tell where some of them belonged in the speeches since they were not called for by number, and some of them in the back of the book we had no recollection of his having introduced; but we put them in the back of the book so he could not cry about them being left out. I have more room to complain about those in the back of the book than he, for due to a printers error after the fire which destroyed a part of the book and delayed us considerably in its reproduction and which, by the way, is responsible for some of the errors which we have discovered, minor ones, in the book, his charts in the back of the book are affixed without proper heading to my last speech. I certainly hope no one of our readers will give me credit for any of them for I sure don't want it. If I couldn't furnish better proof than his cartoons for what I believe, I would never raise my voice in trying to defend it for I would be ashamed.
He also infers that our charts are not as readable and artistic as theirs and that the reason for this is that we had them redrawn. The fact is that we used all of theirs that were fit to use and redrew only those that Brother Warren had made so crudely that they would have spoiled the appearance of the book. The same artist drew the pictures of both my charts and his for our book and both received the same treatment. Is there any unfairness about that? Some of the charts would not have been readable at all if they had not been redrawn and as it is, those we used which Brother Warren drew are the crudest ones in our book. In addition to giving them copies of my charts during the debate, I sent him duplicate drawings of my charts for use in their book.
In everything we have tried to be as fair as we knew how but what we have gotten out of Woods and Good-pasture for the most part we have had to make them do. When you refuse their institutional idols or stand in the welt of their profit and prominence you get nothing but "dirt" from them. I am sorry that it is so because it does not help matters besides not being right. To have to deal with their childish trash is distasteful for you can't clean up trash without getting your hands somewhat dirty.
4. Another deliberate misrepresentation is found in this:
"Brother Cogdill contended throughout the debate that, in evangelism, one church might send money to another church, only when it was sent directly to the preacher. We asked, "Brother Cogdill, would you object to the radio program" (i.e., the Herald of Truth program, GNW), "if they simply took control of it from under the elders of the Highland Church and put it under the preacher?" This question he positively refused to answer."
This question Brother Cogdill did not refuse to answer. Brother Woods didn't listen carefully during the debate or he would not have made the charge and he didn't listen as carefully to the tapes when he was checking the manuscript as he would have us to believe or he would know I had answered it. The answers to this question may be "deleted" in their book but they are in ours and the tapes will verify it.
In my fourth negative (page 307 — Gospel Guardian edition) on the Herald of Truth proposition I said:
"When the need was evangelism and they cooperated in the work of evangelism, they sent it to the preacher. Oh, he said, when would that stop? Why if one church can send to the preacher, and a dozen churches send to the preachers, then a thousand could, and ten thousand could. No, no, there isn't any difficulty about the stopping place if you send it to the preacher. It'll stop when he gets his need met. Now if he starts in hiring other preachers to preach under him, it would never stop. That's the reason you can't stop it when you get Highland's set-up".
On page 339 (our book) again in my fifth negative on the same proposition and on the same point I said:,
"Congregations, in the New Testament day contributed to a work of preaching the gospel only by sending out preachers and sending wages directly to the preacher whom they were supporting to supply his need. Phil. 2:25, 4:15 and 17, II Corinthians 11:7 and 8."
"Now you know he deals with the idea of a preacher having a radio program under him, sending to the preacher in order that the preacher might use some other means out here somewhere. Last night I told you that the sending to the preacher ought to stop when the preacher's need stops. That's New Testament pattern, too. When congregations, in the New Testament, supported preachers, they supplied their need. They gave them what they needed in order to do their work and Paul said it was wages that he received."
Then in the exchange (page 354 — our book) when Woods was in his sixth affirmative and I had dealt with this very matter in the two speeches I had made preceding this, he charged that I had not answered the question. I told him that I had answered it and when he demanded to know what my answer had been I said again,
"Well, you weren't listening. I said that the preacher had his need supplied and that was the end of the congregation's sending to him. That was the support of the preacher".
Still again in my sixth negative (page 374 — our book) I dealt with the matter the fourth time in these words - - -
"Give me chart no. 51. Here's a preacher now. This church is sending money to the preacher in order that the preacher might have oversight of a program of preaching the gospel. That he might oversee a program. Well I don't read in the New Testament about preachers overseeing a program. Nor do I read in the New Testament about churches that sent to a preacher funds with which to oversee a program of work. I read only in the New Testament, I dealt with that last night, I dealt with it in my other speech, that's the point that he said I didn't reply to. I said that that thing's not right. I wouldn't endorse it. Why? Because the New Testament churches stopped sending to a preacher when they supplied his need. And everybody that was here last night, and who's been here tonight, knows that I dealt with that. And he did that just like he's done everything else. You can get up here and answer what he has to say and his way of getting around your answer is to say that you didn't say a thing in the world about it, not a thing in the world about it".
So when Brother Woods wrote in his article in September 25 issue of the Gospel Advocate that "this quotation he positively refused to answer" (see quotation above), he deliberately and willfully falsified about it again in an effort to deceive his Gospel Advocate readers. He would leave the impression that he was pressing a point that I had refused to deal with. He didn't have any point and I had fully dealt with his dodge — four times.
Moreover, I defined a "preacher's needs" and what I meant by that with these words — page 339 — "When congregations, in the New Testament, supported preachers, they supplied their needs. They gave them what they needed in order to do their work". Notwithstanding all of that, Brother Woods falsely said in his article
"It will be observed that, in this case, the object of the sending was benevolence — to meet the need of the preacher; whereas, the question involved evangelistic support and activity"
But not one time did I say the preacher's own "physical need". I pointed out that the preacher supplied his own physical needs out of the wages he received and that such was not "benevolence" but "wages". He will not deal fairly with an opponent. He is not even as fair as sectarians.
False Position Attributed
Brother Woods, in his effort to kill the sale of our book, uses his article filled with so much falsehood as to facts to also misrepresent me as to positions taken during the debate. We look at some of them:
1. Following the charge that we deliberately deleted the lines about the needy private home (our book page 131) and that such omission was significant he says this:
"To Cogdill, the needy private home involves irreconcilable difficulty with his hobby".
Thus he infers that the lines were left out to get away from a difficulty. This is completely false and maliciously so. The "needy private home" involves no difficulty at all in the proposition we were discussing as I repeatedly pointed out in the discussion and Brother Woods refused to notice. Our proposition was — "It is contrary to the scriptures for Churches of Christ to build and maintain benevolent organizations for the care of the needy."
Now if anyone persists in thinking that the "needy private home" is a benevolent organization built and maintained by the churches of Christ, I am afraid that he is beyond being helped. Brother Woods' effort to draw the discussion away from the proposition which he so reluctantly signed to debate this third time and off on such a tangent at the "needy private home" which was not even remotely connected with the proposition was very marked. It was the only contention he made in Birmingham. It represented a complete reversal in his position in the two debates with Porter. In the first debate with Porter, Indianapolis, he contended that the benevolent organization under discussion was simply a "functional arrangement of the church like the Sunday School". Then in the debate at Paragould he had argued that the "benevolent organization" under discussion was no part of the church but was an integral part of the institutional home and therefore a divine institution or organization. At Birmingham it was simply a needy private home. Formerly he had argued in both debates that churches of Christ had the same right to set up such benevolent organizations as "Boles Home, Inc." that the Federal Government has to organize the Post Office Department. In all three debates he had signed the same propositions and was supposed to be discussing benevolent organizations built by the churches. Anyone who will read the Porter-Woods debate — or is it the Woods-Porter Debate? — and then read the Birmingham debate — either edition — can see, if they will open their eyes, that Woods reversed himself completely concerning these "benevolent organizations" each time he discussed them. Now suppose Brother Leslie Thomas tells us which time he was right, "if he is capable of passing judgement."
2. In another paragraph of his article he has this to say:
"A second instance of substantial omission is the following: On page 189 (Cogdill edition), is the statement, 'He says that a church can provide food without going into the food business," but omitted is the rest of the sentence, which adds: ". . . yet refuses to, going that the church can provide a home without going into the home business!" His whole thesis is based on the theory that the church may contribute only to that which it runs. Hence, his absurd conclusion that any endeavor to which the church contributes is essentially church business!"
I hold no such theory as he attributes to me, viz., "that the church can contribute only to that which it runs". Brother Woods knows that is not true and I charge him again with crooked and willful misrepresentation in such a statement. The apostle John called men who did that "liars". Jesus said no such will enter heaven. Guy, you need to repent.
I contended in the second proposition that a church can contribute to another church when it is in need, but repeatedly denied in six speeches for three nights that one church can run another church. Guy you know that! Why did you lie about it?
Even so a church can contribute to a "needy private home," i.e.'s to those responsible for it, without running it. But a church cannot build and maintain another organization either benevolent, evangelistic, or educational to do its work for it. Brother Woods whole "thesis is based on the theory that a church can contribute to anything from which it can buy service". This I will deny anywhere he wants to affirm it.
He says further:
"It was alleged that the Guardian always allows both sides to be heard. (This writer knows, from personal experience with the paper, as do many others, that such is palpably false)."
Well every one knows that it is admittedly true that only one side can be written in the Gospel Advocate and that is Goodpasture's side. Guy Woods undertook in the debate to defend such a policy. I charged during the discussion that the Gospel Advocate would have every eldership in every congregation subscribe out of the treasury for every member so B. C. Goodpasture can censor what they read by printing only what he agrees with. This is dictatorship of the highest order and they admittedly seek it and even think it defensible.
I also charged and Goodpasture was there to hear as much of it as he could take, that he will print in the Gospel Advocate anything on earth that anybody will say against anyone who disagrees with and opposes him and what he thinks without investigation as to its truth and when he learns that it isn't true, he will never make any correction. The lies that have been featured on the pages of the Advocate by men completely unworthy of any consideration have been many. We have never seen one of them corrected yet.
Guy Woods wants to leave the impression that we profess to print everything anybody writes and that we will not do it. We have never claimed that as a policy. In this he misrepresents us again. He also charges as a further violation of our alleged policy that we will not print what he writes and sends to us. We may be ignorant and somewhat dumb but we are not altogether stupid. Like the Russian government and the communistic policy, they claim liberties they are not willing to grant. We can allow discussion of both sides of any issue without sharing our audience of readers with a man, who will not let us be heard before this. I am fully convinced that Guy Woods would not begin to write many of the things he does in the Advocate if he knew they could be answered and exposed in the Advocate. He isn't that much of a fool!
Besides he commends the church — Brother Jack Meyer's church in Birmingham — for joining in allowing both sides to be heard for six nights in the debate, and the Advocate prints their censored copy of the debate to sell, but both sides can't be heard in the paper for that is "holy ground"! Pshaw!
Brother Woods get your boss — Goodpasture — to print this in the Advocate and I will print your article in the Guardian!