Stoned-Campbell Disciple

Its Sunday afternoon here in the desert. We had a wonderful (I think) time at the Gathering at PV today. It is still quite hot out though I learned driving across New Mexico and western Texas that they seem to be in the 70s and 80s … not so here! I ate at a fast food mexican joint called “La Salsa” with some friends from PV today. One asked me “what do you do on Sunday afternoons?” As you can tell … NOTHING! I don’t really have anything significant to blog about so I will just sort of practice my free association, 😉

Can you believe the Brewers beat the Cubs and are in the playoffs for the first time since 1982! They are going to party in Milwaukee tonight (like it is 1999 to quote Prince). Read about Milwaukee going wild here. And the Packers lost to Tampa Bay but Farve threw a career high of 6 (that is SIX!!) touchdowns against our Arizona Cardinals. See him here. In other sporting news we can all celebrate that USC was humiliated by Oregon St and Florida lost to Ole Miss. But Alabama rolled over Georgia and is now ranked #2 in the AP poll behind Oklahoma … and I have to say that based on who each team has played so far … BAMA deserves to be placed first. Bama is the “unanimous” choice to play either Missouri or Oklahoma in a BCS title game. There is a lot of football left so I suggest that Bama fans not get too cocky yet but it was sweet to see the teams the pundits anointed so early on crumble when actually challenged (i.e. USC in the Pac-10 … give me a break!!!).

On to other stuff. R. C. Bell, K. C. Moser, and J. D. Thomas. There is a connection between these three. I have often heard the quip “If you get Romans, God get you” and seen or heard it attributed to Moser. I do believe Moser said that and probably often. But Moser did not originate that saying, R. C. Bell did. J. D. Thomas in a small “Self-Study Guide” to Romans published in 1963 states that Bell was his teacher at ACC and attributes the slogan to Bell. This is significant because he also mentions both Moser and Brewer in the same context. I know that there was significant interaction between Moser, Brewer and Thomas in the late 1930s when all three were in or around Lubbock, TX. I have little doubt that Thomas was in many ways mentored by Moser in those years. Years later Thomas would still lament that “Our people are legalists, basically” (quoted in an interview with Jim Mankin).

In the Center for Restoration Studies, as I was searching for Moser material I decided to look into the connections with Thomas and a few others (like John P. Lewis) to fill in the gaps in Moser knowledge and to trace his influence as best I can. I decided to dive into Thomas and was surprised that the Thomas papers are not extensive at all, at least those in the Center. But I did find biographical material, a special edition of Minister’s Monthly (April 1962) edited by Thomas with articles by Thomas, Bell and Moser in it. Here are some great lines in Bell and Moser:

“Christianity is God’s superrefined, perfected way of making men gracious, loving, and lawful … [A]part from Christ, they become self-righteous, ungracious, unsympathetic legalists and weary drudgers of dull duty” (Bell).

“The doctrine of grace has been lifted, so to speak, right out of the cross… The cross changes things!” (Moser)

While in Abilene it was great to fellowship with Fran Moser Winkles, her husband Dub and daughter Susan. They are wonderful people and have been so gracious towards me. I owe them a debt of gratitude. And my teacher, John Mark, I would not even be doing what I’m doing if it were not for him … things in my life have not let me go the route I intended to go (teach) but such is life. John Mark taught me more about Moser than anyone. He may not claim me but …

Let’s see what else? Oh yes! I wore my helmet today and Jeanne Holt was NO WHERE to be seen. I was like hello girl … here it is. I got to talk with Rachael and Talya on the phone yesterday and I was so happy about that.

Ramblings are over,
Bobby V

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Bobby's World, Church History, K. C. Moser, R. C. Bell, Restoration History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.