Herald of Truth Magazine: Spring 1968 Herald of Truth
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Abilene Christian University Digital Commons @ ACU Herald of Truth Documents Herald of Truth Records Spring 1968 Herald of Truth Magazine: Spring 1968 Herald of Truth Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/hot_docs Recommended Citation Herald of Truth, "Herald of Truth Magazine: Spring 1968" (1968). Herald of Truth Documents. 199. https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/hot_docs/199 This Manuscript is brought to you for free and open access by the Herald of Truth Records at Digital Commons @ ACU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Herald of Truth Documents by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ ACU. lJJ zzw ..... ,_. :.::=0 0 u.J tJ.J '° ~ N,_.,....__J °' Wom _J °' <I: "All happy families," wrote L~o Tol stoy, "resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." When religious programs get in front of a 9amera or a microphone, they often earn the same kind of comparison. There is goodness and light on one side, and reality on the other. Sunday morn ing shows talk about life the way it ought to be; the rest of the week, the news, the documentaries, the true-to-life dramas depict life the way it really is. The viewer, the listener- the man groping through a maze of moral and social paradoxes - is left to his own devices to bring the two together, pre there were one clear and s})iningmoment suming he sees any relationship at all. here that would scatter the doubts and "All this talk is fine," he will tell you, fears that cloud his mind - if there What is "but nobody knows the trouble I've were one vivid idea that were"directed to seen." him and him alone in answer to his personal problems. Heraldof Truth? There is nothing wrong ( and cer A religious program, for a variety of tainly there is a great deal of good) in reasons, is seldom promoted outside re the be-like-me attitudes of many reli ligious circles. It has to find its public gious broadcasts, except for one big by a slow process of distillation. It comes obstacle: they do not come off intellec on in a time period where most pro tually as answers, and they do not come grams wouldn't be caught dead; yet it off artistically as drama. deals with the most priceless commodity To Jesus, who remains unsurpassed on the face of the earth - the human at framing truth in terms of dramatic soul. Those; who watch or listen to it devices and parables, the average reli" most are those who need it least, and gious broadcast must seem dull, pooped those who would profit from it most out, and mechanical. Compared to most usually miss it or miss the point or both. other programs on the air, good or bad, A 1967 census reports that 45.7% of it usually drags on a little more slowly, the population of the United States be the dialogue is a shade more stilted, the longs to no religious body. And it is realism is a shade thinner, and the mean fairly common knowledge that Chris ing is a little more esoteric. tianity in general arid religious pro grams in particular are losing ground. Herald of Truth Magazine is published quarterly by Highland Church of Even so, almost anyone would over Christ , Box 2439, Abilene, Texas 79604, in the interest of worldwide tele vision and radio evangelism and the Herald of Truth programs. This maga look all the flaws if he could feel that If we were on the outside looking in, zine will be mailed free to those making a contribution to this effort. Second Cl- l'ostap P~d ~, Al>l1eM, Texas 7"84. W. F. Cawyer, Editor • Volume XVI Number I the whole plight of religious broadcast realized its most significant steps for- His enduring truth to those who are lost all men and not just a chosen few. Self ing, from· the standpoint of both the ward when the program was added to and unhappy - each in his own par admittedly "the greatest sinner of all," producers and the public, would look the weekly schedule of the NBC radio ticular way. he offered himself as living testimony to pretty discouraging . To tell the truth, we network, and to the regular lineup of There is a very simple statement to be the power of God's love to change men's do not like it very much, for we too pro color programs on more than 150 tele- made about Herald of Truth: we believe lives no matter how low they had sunk. duce a religious program; and we have vision stations. the love of God as revealed in the Scrip- Paul's ministry was not one of gen more than a passing interest in the mat If coverage alone could be considered tures is meant for all men, sinner or eralities and pleasant homilies: he ter. It has become a life's work for some the yardstick of success, you might say saint, profligate or paragon ; that it is related it to the conditions that existed of us, since we happen to believe it is a we have it made. In the cut and dried not meant to be hoarded or discon in the times he lived in. His range of life-or-death matter. columns of statistics, just about anybod nected from everyday life, but belongs awareness and insight makes his writ When we began producing Herald of in the United States could see or hear firmly where Jesus planted it- as the ings as meaningful today as th~y were Truth 16 years ago on radio ( 14 years Herald of Truth broadcast each week single source of salvation to all men. almost two thousand years ago, because ago on television), we did so under what But modern times are far from bein "Being then God's offspring, we cught he treated the human situation honestly we considered a mandate in the Great cut and dried, and the contempora not to think that the Deity is like gold, and realistically- for, while times Commission of our Lord and Savior, mind that has been conditioned to land or silver, or sione, a representation by change and human progress brings many Jesus Christ: "Go ye therefore into all ings on the moon and fantastic scien the art and imagination of man. The material advances, the fundamental the world ... preaching the gospel . ... " tific discoveries and brutal crimes an times of ignorance God overlooked, but needs and fears and doubts and hopes Then , as now, Herald of Truth was mass violence and self-indulgence an now he commands all men everywhere of men remained unchanged from gen- built around the teachings of Jesus and all the other curious by-products of ou the manifestations of inspired evange society often finds little relation betwee , lism in the New Testament. The Bible is the overwhelming inconsistencies of ou our source - our only source - of age and the teachings of a man wh authority, purpose, direction, and guid lived among fishermen in the simpl ance. Our goal from the beginning has ways of two-thousand years ago. been the restoration of first- century If anyone's childhood has been ell\ Christianity to this century; our support bittered by a broken home and a drunk throughout the years has come entirely en father; if his wife has ceased to car from churches of Christ and from for him and he is heartily tired of hi friends who shared our goal; our tools job and the purposelessness of his life are the greatest communications media if his brother is going to court wi.th hi in the world - radio and television. over the division of the family property and his son acting in studied defiance o Herald of Truth began on a small his plans and wishes; if petty jealousie network of 30 radio stations in Febru and hatreds have soured him on hi ary, 1951. Slowly, one by one, we added friends; and hi~ morning newspaper an stations in all parts of the country, and his evening television ..• are gloomy re we added more experience; and we minders of inhumanity and violence an added,too,a dream that someday Herald shame it is hard for him to see tha to repent, because he has fixed a day on eration to generation. of Truth would be broadcast coast to Christian love and hope were meant fo which he will judge the world in Through Herald of Truth, we attempt coast - that ultimately our television him as well as for all the happy peopl righteousness by a man who he has ap to bring these timeless messages to our and radio programs would be seen and in the world. pointed, a_ndof this he has given assur- own age in terms that are .understand heard around the world in the real di But we believe that tpis kind of ma ance (o all men by raising him from able and relative. Contemporary times mensions of world evangelism. and his wife and his children ar the dead" (Acts 17:29 -31). have given us a whole new set of aber During the past 16 years, Herald of among the people that Herald of Trut The Apostle 'Paul, who wrote these rations that wear new names and new Truth has accrued over 150,000 hours must reach if the purpose of our pr lines, was no small. man with a phrase faces - LSD and pot, teenyboppers and of broadcast time on more than i,050 gram is valid and the message we preac or a purpose; ~nd if he had been less junkies, hippies and hell's angels, sit-ins radio and television stations .