1. A Friendly Letter on Benevolence by Irven Lee (1958). This letter, written by Lee to a personal friend (who remains anonymous in the text) has circulated in tract form for a number of years. Lee (1914-ca. 1990), after serving on the David Lipscomb College faculty in the 1930s, preached in North Alabama for a number of years (in Jasper, Hartselle, Athens, Arab and Toney) and helped to found both the Athens Bible School (serving as president from 1942-1947) and Mars Hill Bible School. He was the author of at least two books: Preaching in a Changing World and Good Homes in a Wicked World (1975) and numerous tracts and pamphlets, including Things That Make For Peace (~1987). All of these are examples of a really good kind of cultural separatism/apocalyptic worldview (take your pick of terminology) in evidence in some circles among NI churches.
I’m currently trying to flesh out the details of his career and Google has been singularly unhelpful. Any input from anyone more knowledgeable than myself would be greatly appreciated.
I post this as an example of a gracious (at a particularly heated time) defense of the NI position. It is a style that we would do well to imitate in our own day, but one that easily gets lost in a sea of heated rhetoric created by the brotherhood journals and their power-hungry editors.
3 responses so far ↓
Owen // May 20, 2009 at 9:28 am |
It has been a while since I’ve read the letter but I believe your best bet would be to contact the person who runs http://www.goodfight.com, whose name escapes me for the moment. This letter is saved on-line there. I believe that the site owner is the son-in-law of Irven Lee.
Chris // May 20, 2009 at 11:31 am |
Thanks for the tip. Looks like it’s Bob Waldron who runs the site. Do you happen to know if this is the same Bob Waldron that publishes all of those Bible class books?
At any rate, it looks like it has been a long while since the site was updated, but I’ll try to send an email anyway.
Owen // May 20, 2009 at 12:55 pm |
Bob Waldron. That was the name. I don’t know if he is the same person that publishes the books. He does keep the directory up to date. I emailed him a couple of years ago and he responded quickly.