[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 larger than the local church,
thus no hierarchy to send directives down to the local congregation—there would be little likelihood of more than one or a few congregations ever coming under such influence.
The dentist and his wife investigated the undenominational church of Christ, against which they had earlier been quite prejudiced. They came to appreciate the restoration principle (i.e., the return to the pure teaching of the New Testament and thereby restoring the primitive church, which Christ built nearly two thousand years ago) and obeyed the gospel plan of salvation, as set forth in the Acts of Apostles.
Director Hoover’s insight into the organization of the church of Christ will always be appreciated by these fine Christians and by their children.
Curtis Cates
1941-2013