So, What Else Is New?
"Mixed emotions: The feeling one experiences when he sees his mother-in-law drive his new Cadillac over the cliff." We've all heard this old bromide. It has been around, in one form or another, for a coon's age - however long that is. But this writer has come up with another definition of "mixed emotions"' namely, the feeling a faithful Christian might have on reading Ira Rice's "Axe On The Root." Which reading we have just done during the week we have been in a gospel meeting with the Forest Hill congregation here in this lovely old city of Richmond. Rare, indeed, is the man who can precisely define and identify the various emotions that his heart and mind may host; they are usually so many, so varied (and often so contradictory) that any intelligent delineation of them may be difficult, if not impossible. But in the case of Ira's books on "Axe" and this writer's reaction to them, two or three emotions were outstanding — like the following:
Ennui. Probably our dominant response was ennui. Brother Rice has been out of the country so much these last several years, and the things he writes about have been so "old hat" to a vast number of informed brethren, that our prevailing mood as we scanned his pages was a sort of bored, yawning "So what?" His excited crescendo of charge and accusation, his cries of "wolf!!, wolf!!" seem curiously out of date and belated. Does he think to stir up a storm of opposition to modernism at this late hour? Is he so naive as to suppose that his "axe" will be any more effective in cutting the roots of the tree of modernism in this generation than David Lipscomb's "broom" was in turning back the flood-tide of digression three generations ago? The verdict of history is too plain for any but the most blinded partisan to misread. Lipscomb did NOT stop the tide of digression (he had never for a moment supposed that he would; he hoped only to save the `remnant' among his brethren who might have respect for God's word.)
Rice's "axe" will no more wither the tree of modernism among the disciples of our day than Lipscomb's "broom" did the job a century ago. There is this difference, however, between Rice and Lipscomb. The doughty Lipscomb was in the forefront of the battle almost from the first day. He may have wavered a bit on the missionary society issue for a short time, but his head cleared very rapidly; and once he saw what was involved, he battled the organized society (and its misbegotten counterpart, "the receiving, managing, and disbursing evangelistic committee" — better known in our day as the sponsoring church) to the very last day of his life. But brother Rice, in contrast, has accepted, promoted, encouraged, and defended this twentieth century modernism for a full twenty years — coming out of his shell only when the dragon reveals himself in such complete detail that his nature (and odor) are too strong and clear to be ignored. Brethren of any insight and discernment were able many years ago to pin-point the real problem in the Lord's church — a lack of respect for Biblical authority, a willingness to follow human plans and schemes and 'human wisdom' rather than God's revealed pattern. Brother Rice was (and is) a great promoter of such human devices — until the ultimate and inevitable fruit of such an attitude reveals itself in its stark and honest rejection of inspiration. And then he jumps up and down and screams to high heaven about the "modernism" among us! What does he think those he contemptuously calls "antis" have been battling this past score of years?
Mild curiosity. A second strain of reaction as we read Ira's "Axe" was mild curiosity — what will happen now? Rice has not been known as a man of moderation....in anything he undertakes. He is by nature an extremist. He is seeking to stir up a solid wall of opposition to what Garrett calls "the young princes" in the church; and gives approving notes of commendation from quite a number of the "old guard", meaning Goodpasture, Woods, Gus Nichols, and others. Does he not know that the editors of "MISSION" are way ahead of him? Does he think, by any stretch of the imagination, to turn back the hands of the clock to 1940? Can he not realize that when he and a great host of others embarked on the wild crusade of "God told us to do it, but didn't tell us how;" "there is no pattern:" "we do many things for which there is no Bible authority" — they were sowing the seeds of eventual disaster? Were they so blinded by their overweening conceit that they supposed they could have "just a little" modernism, and stop there? Have they read history all in vain and to no purpose? Do not the tragic examples of J. B. Briney and J. W. McGarvey mean anything at all to them?
Anyhow, the battle is now joined. And this editor, for one, will watch it with mixed emotions. We cannot deny that among those emotions there is a tinge of pity for Ira and those who are with him. We know what it is to be ostracized, maligned and "cast out of the church" (a la Diotrephes), and we can assure Ira that he is in for no picnic. Maybe his experiences among the heathen peoples of the Orient will have prepared him for the experience a bit better than was the case with us. But we will watch with a degree of detached curiosity as the fight warms up. It ought to prove interesting.
F. Y. T.