Spurgeon

Not a post about Spurgeon, but I was reminded of this incident when I created a link to Charles Finney on Spurgeon.org.

One of the great detriments of the Churches of Christ was that uneducated people (almost always men) could end up as elders of local churches and control (usually with genuine intent to serve) the teaching of the church.

The word 'teaching' is not quite the right word in my experience, because there was none. Even basic biblical challenges could not be met.

On one occasion I was with an older friend, our youth group president (not 'leader', note), and son of an elder (now the owner of a successful theatrical agency in Melbourne) when a more informed Christian referred to Spurgeon in a talk. My friend, very smart, well read in general literature (and over-read in science fiction, to my mind) had not heard the name before and asked "What's a Spurgeon".

There you have it. The result of a church that not only did not encourage exploratory reading in the faith and history of the church, but did not even know that there was the possibility of such. Thus failing to provide intellectual nurture for younger people, leaving us to go to uni completely unequipped to represent our faith and the challenges we would face in its practice. The faith of many thus wilted.