I arrived at Central Christian College of the Bible on a fall day and parked in front of the central building on campus. Prominent of above the main entrance, a sign identifies it as Pelfrey Hall.
Stepping through the front door, the first person I saw, greeting people at the reception desk, is Irene Pelfrey. It’s her husband I was here to talk with and for whom the building is named, an honor he’s earned in his almost six decades at CCCB. He began there as a professor in 1957, the year the college was founded. He has since served as Central’s president (for 26 years), then chancellor, and now as Professor Emeritus.
Mrs. Pelfrey and I talked about mutual friends and family members while we waited for her husband to finish his Post-Exilic Literature class. Eventually he came down the stairs, still in conversation with a student. After a brief conversation with is wife, Pelfrey invited me to follow him to his office.
. . .
TR: What are you doing these days?
LP: The best thing I’m doing is having purpose and staying busy. And my purpose varies from day to day.
I got tired of pressure, that’s why I retired from here in 1998, I was through. No more pressure. No more decisions. I was finished, I was beat.
And now I’m trying to help whoever needs help, whether it’s the church or a person. I was an elder once; I enjoyed it.
I do some speaking and writing. I update my teaching notes on Restoration history all the time. I just keep adding things and adding things.
There are people who like me for various reasons, there’s probably some who don’t like me. I know there are. But I try to be conscientious, although I’ve made some conscientious mistakes.
I’ll go home and process e-mails. I get questions regularly. There’s a fellow over at Fort Wayne who one time asked Jack Spratt a question and Jack said, 'I don’t know, let’s go ask Lloyd Pelfrey.' And that fellow’s been asking Lloyd Pelfrey questions ever since.
I enjoy it thoroughly when people came from four sides at once with different questions.
TR: Which former students have impressed you most with what they've gone on to accomplish?
LP: (He was reluctant to name specific former students)
The person who s probably had the greatest impact is Salonique Adolphe, down in Haiti. Others have gone there too, but he’s revolutionizing the western part of Haiti. The Restoration movement has had a great impact on Haiti. Someone told me - I almost doubt it - that we have 600 missionaries or missionary groups in Haiti.
I had a fear for him when one of the hurricanes hit and it leveled everything he had done. All washed away with the mud. I hoped he wouldn’t quit, but he handled the discouragement and started again. Satan will try to stop anything that’s going well.
Earl Ferguson and his son David have accomplished a lot. David was a defiant little guy but I certainly admired him. When he was here was extremely capable, an organizer.
Pelfrey on Music
Pelfrey notes a decrease in attention to a biblical theology of church music, a willingness to gloss over details.
"In the Old Testament you bow down to worship, you stand up to praise.” He notes. “Today the song leader says “Let’s all stand up to worship.” It’s not biblical, but we all know what it means.”
Pelfrey on the Restoration Movement
"The goal of teaching is to try to prevent them from going back into what they came from. I spoke at a gathering where the topic was the Restoration. I looked out into the crowd and saw everyone there was up in years and I don’t know that they’re going to change or be changed. We’re preaching to the choir. Maybe it’s time to quit doing things like that and just go home and go to work."
Pelfrey told a story from Leroy Garret’s book on the Stone-Campbell movement:
It happened at one of these world convention meetings. A Disciples leader was there and he was telling these leaders from around the world the story of the Restoration Movement, what we believe. Go back to the Bible, be a Christian. He got through and they were all impressed. And one bearded patriarch asked this question, "And have you never divided?”
Pelfrey on Evangelism
The fellowship we have as believers is very important, but I consider it to be of peripheral importance. It’s not the main goal. Other things are there too, like justice. God has certainly always been against injustice, but the purpose of the gospel is not to feed the poor. There are social implications of the genuine gospel, but they are not the gospel.
Back in 1976, when we were having the 200th celebration of America, Standard Publishing put out many study books. People bought all the study books on the things they wanted to study. The least popular study book was the one on personal evangelism. Nobody wanted to go out and do something, they just wanted to sit and study.
You have to have manageable goals. If I tell the people, let’s win the world for Christ, that’s too big, I can’t do that. But I like the idea one of our alumni had one time, in a rural area, he told a person, 'I want you to go call on every person in your square mile where you live, that’s all. Can you handle that? Maybe they’ll reject you, but maybe they’ll invite you back in to teach.'
I was just talking to Bryce Houchen [a student at CCCB] about this. He wants to do something down there in Columbia. I said, OK, can you can you get the people to just call on one side of one street, that’s all. Not the world. Maybe all of them will reject you but one. That’s great. You may have call on ten streets to get an acceptance. Can you do something where you are?
The future is going to depend on somebody having the foresight to teach the people to not just sit and be entertained, but to go do something. Do something, whatever it is. It may be to fix meals for the poor, but do something.
Pelfrey on the Future
My favorite class has become Israel After the Exile. I show them the connection between the 300 Spartans and the Bible. The Persian King is Esther’s husband. If you read the book of Esther there’s a four year gap. What was he doing? Fighting the Greeks. Oh really?
Alexander the Great. What a great contribution he made despite his immorality, but he had a tender side. I tell the students, You’re studying Greek because of Alexander. Oh really?
And they put all these things together from the Greeks and the Romans and the famous Punic Wars. All these things were getting everything ready for the Son of Man to come at the right time. And those soldiers and kings did not know they were being used by God. I’m impressed that God worked through all those things while people waited for centuries.
I have my own personal theory of ‘What’s the purpose of the United States in God’s plan.’ I don’t’ know, but I have a theory that our purpose was to be a missionary sending nation. And this nation grew across this country, they had what they called a manifest destiny, they thought God gave us this destiny to do this. Then we started sending missionaries to the world because they were no longer strict Calvinist. If you’re a Calvinist you don’t’ need to send a missionary. If God wants those people saved, he doesn’t need your help.
Now those countries are sending missionaries here. The only places Christianity is growing today is not America. Across Europe, it’s declining. God’s about through. The people in other parts of the world are the ones accepting the gospel, with some exceptions among the Arabs, But God is maybe saying, 'You just wait, I’ll take care of them.'
So I think America’s purpose might be over. I don’t know what the end will be. I’m glad I am where I am and I tell young people I’m sorry, you’re going to have to face something. I don’t know what it is.
God is in charge. My fears for the United States of America and for the church, the Restoration Movement are great. I’m not sure what the future holds. I just don’t know, I’m glad I’m 84.
When a nation has served his purpose historically, it’s over. Assyria, the Persians, Greece, the Egyptians, the list is long.
People like to quote II Chronicles 7:14, but we’re not God's people as a nation. Christianity is not about nations.
There’s always a tipping point and I’m not sure what it is. For Sodom and Gomorrah it was ten faithful people. Which led to an old Jewish tradition that there are always ten righteous people in the world to keep it from being destroyed.
Are you one?
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