Home

Ed Harrell

This column comes to you this month from that notorious moral wasteland--CALIFORNIA. Can any good thing come out of California? Is it not true that at some time in the early twentieth century the whole country tilted and all of the loose nuts slid away to the West Coast?

Just in case the anxiety level of any readers is nearing a critical point, we should note that Focus Magazine is printed in Russellville, Alabama. That surely has some purifying effect.

Glib generalizations can color and distort our perceptions. For instance: "Yankees are rude." Not really; some of the most helpful and courteous people I have ever encountered lived in big northern cities. "Indians are spiritual and non-materialistic." So I thought when I moved to India for the first time twenty-seven years ago, but I have been cheated and lied to more in three years in India than in the rest of my life in the United States.

"Texans are loud." I made that one up after my trip to India this summer accompanied by David Owen, Tom Kinzel, Roger Shouse, and two Texans, Robert Gabhart and Russ Bowman. Ask David, Tom and Roger–Texans are loud. But my Texas theory, clearly proven by Gabhart and Bowman, was blown out of the water when I met a lot of strong, silent Texans on a recent trip there.

Or, consider my favorite generalization: "Southerners are courteous, friendly, and gracious people." That just goes to show that some generalizations are correct.

Now, a quick plug for California. Some of the best people you will ever meet, and some of the best churches you will ever visit, are in California. Consider, for instance, the three young, but not-too-young, editors of Focus. So pack away your regional prejudices and be prepared for some good California surprises.

There are good people and good churches in all sections of the United States and in many places outside this country. Each place presents its own challenges. In some places the challenge of worldliness is more pronounced; in other places, the chief enemy of true righteousness is a fossilized and traditional concept of the church of Jesus Christ.

Some challenges are probably tougher in California than in Alabama. Which makes me admire all the more the many fine Christians who live there. Anybody who can drive in Southern California without being stricken with road rage, or at least cussin’ a little, has learned a lot about patience and self-control.

Easy generalizations can hinder our work as Christians. It would be a mistake to think that nothing good could come out of Nazareth, or that the righteous can not eat with sinners, or that Gentiles could not be a part of the kingdom of God.

Prejudice is a wicked thing. Christ liberated us from all ethnic, class, and racial barriers and placed us in an environment "where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3: 11).

Christianity can bloom anywhere that there are people who are willing to take up their cross and follow Jesus. I am thankful for the thousands who have made that commitment in California, as well as in all other places.

Travel has certainly broadened my view of the world and made me less likely to accept easy stereotypes.

Still, all in all, on the whole, in my experience, Texans are loud.