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The Fruits
of Norrisism Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from "The Fruits of Norrisism," by L.R. Scarborough when he was president of Southwestern Baptists Theological Seminary. This trace is a discussion of some of the fruits of an old cult under a new name. The following are some of the characteristics of this cult - Norrisism: 1. It is toward true religion what socialism and bolshevism are to politics and industry: wholly destructive in spirit and methods. 2. It is anti-missionary and anti-institutional. It gives nothing to associational, state or home missions and only enough to foreign missions to get representation in the convention. It spends most of its money on itself - sometimes in court trials for perjury, arson and murder, and in sending our free literature seeking to destroy the causes other people try to build. 3. It thrives on sensationalism, misrepresentation and false accusations of good men and true causes. It masquerades under the cloak of anti-evolutionism, anti- modernism and anti-Catholicism in order to ride into public favor and cast poisonous suspicion on the leadership of the causes of constructive Christianity. 4. In its chief leadership it is the embodiment of autocratic ecclesiasticism. All the privileges and rights of the church heading up in the pastor. 5. It uses the pulpit, the press and the radio to create suspicion, to foment class prejudices and to vent its hatred again innocent personalities and institutions. 6. It divides and splits families, churches, associations and strikes its poisonous fangs at the brotherhood of Christianity. 7. It lowers the standards of right conduct, individual righteousness, ministerial ethics, personal integrity and gives to the world a false conception of the character, spirit and methods of Christianity. 8. The only people or causes it praises are those who bow down to its dictum or fail in any wise to cross its path. 9. The individual, the preacher or church who joins in sympathy with this cult will sooner or later cease to cooperate with the mission, educational or benevolent enterprises fostered by God's people. 10. It has some noble names upon the escutcheon of its false accusations and public misrepresentations: Carroll, Gambrell, McDaniel, McConnell, Mullins, C. V. Edwards, Brooks, Sampey, Groner, Ray, Robertson, Forrest Smith, Cullen Thomas, Truett and others-multitudes of false accusations, such as : infidelity, graft, heresy, theft and such like, and groundless insinuations have gone out against these good men for years. This tract deals with only a few of these false and slanderous charges against these brethren. These are but sample - there are many others which are groundless as these. Research for this article provided by Ron Ellison. May 2000 |