J. Edgar Hoover and the Church of Christ

[276 words] In a recent gospel meeting, this writer was privileged to meet a dentist and his wife who informed him of an inquiry they had made of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation several decades ago. This couple was very active in a mainline denominational church when they began to notice the increasingly pronounced move toward socialism, especially in the directives and guidelines sent down from the church’s headquarters. Having become disenchanted by the modernistic, anti- American, pro-socialistic thrusts of their denomination and by the National Council of Churches, of which their church was a member and major supporter, they wrote Director J. Edgar Hoover, F.B.I., Washington, D.C., asking, “Which church in America, if any, is likely to be the least infiltrated and permeated by such unpatriotic influences?” Mr. Hoover promptly responded by letter, saying that since the churches of Christ are completely autonomous— possessing no organization…