Wayne Mickey edits a paper called The Reasoner which voices opposition to Bible classes and a few other extreme views. While I do not find much in it with which I can agree, touching the matters, Brother Mickey writes with a homespun wit. In a recent issue he told of a preaching trip into Tennessee. One of the brethren where he preached had a sorghum mill and gave him a quart jar of sorghum to take home with him. He packed it in his suitcase and headed back to Texas on a plane. Upon arrival and reclaiming his suitcase, he quickly noticed a dark brown, sticky substance oozing from it. You guessed it! The jar had been broken in handling and his clothes, Bible and papers were sweetened with a layer of Tennessee sorghum! His comment after reporting this was a classic. He said "From now on, when brethren give me something to eat, I am going to sit down and eat it right there on the spot." I got to thinking of all the edible items I have been given at different times and places and the problem this might create should brother Mickey's advice be put into practice -- I mean, things like smoked mullet, citrus, pear preserves, pickles and blackberry jelly. Oh, the perils and predicaments into which traveling preachers fall!

Goodpasture's Evaluation of the "Antis"

In the October 21, 1971 Gospel Advocate, Lewis S. Maiden reviews the biography of B. C. Goodpasture written by J. E. Choate, Maiden reported:

"The Gospel Advocate has loyally supported every good work. It has also refuted the charges of the 'antis.' The editor summarized this movement perfectly: 'It was started by disgruntled preachers who did not receive the attention they thought they deserved. They thought they could get attention by riding some hobby they couldn't get by preaching the gospel.' He answered an attack made by the Gospel Guardian with the Indian's appraisal of the preacher's sermon, 'Much wind! Big thunder! No rain!' "

We shall leave brother Goodpasture's judgment of the motives of the preachers he calls "antis" between him and his God. What elevates him to the position that he knows exactly the thoughts and intents of the hearts of his brethren remains a secret. But his comment about wind, thunder and no rain is of interest to the student of history. All through the 1950's the advocates of church supported institutions and sponsoring churches protested that the Guardian and other papers and many preachers were making a big thing out of nothing. Things were not really headed into total digression. It was just wind and thunder, but no rain. Yet, now the Advocate itself is much alarmed over outright modernism among some of the younger preachers who were nourished on the "no pattern" preachments of the 1950's and early 60's. They are up in arms about the tongue speaking movement, the rank Pentecostalism in the church. Advocate staff writers are writing, preaching and lecturing on these things and making a lot of noise. You see, the wind and thunder about which Goodpasture pleasantly joked have turned out to be no joke at all for there was a virtual flood on the way and it is presently inundating a number of churches who have stood identified with the views of "the old Reliable." Many of us tried to tell them what was coming, but they, like Noah's generation, continued to "marry and be given in marriage" until the day the flood came, and now they are left without ark. Wind! Yes. Thunder? Yes. Now, HEAP BIG RAIN!

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 12, pp. 5-6
January 27, 1972