Biblical Separation Defended - Far Eastern Bible College

ARGUMENT X“The Lord Was Never Concerned with Sponsorship”The Argument Advanced by Dr. FermThe tenth item for debate is the assertion of the New Evangelicalthat “Sponsorship caused little or no concern on the part of Jesus and theapostles,” 1 and that therefore, the evangelist ought not to be distractedfrom his essential mission of proclaiming the Gospel by concerninghimself with that which did not concern his Lord. 2An Examination of Dr. Ferm’s ConclusionsDr. Ferm’s words unmistakably mirror the fact that he hasconcluded that the sponsorship question was never of any concern to theLord and therefore should not be any concern to the evangelicalpreacher of today. He sees it as a distraction from the central mission ofpreaching the Gospel. This may be because concern over sponsorship isthought by him to limit the opportunity of preaching the Gospel byreducing the doctrinal latitude of the sponsoring parties and thusreducing the potential audience of the evangelist since each one on thesponsoring committee of a crusade usually causes many of his ownconstituents to attend the meetings.The apparent effectiveness of Dr. Graham’s ministry in winningsouls apparently justifies in Dr. Ferm’s eyes the practice of permittingknown liberals to be on the sponsoring committee, his welcoming them,defending their presence, and according to them all the rights andprivileges of any conservative sponsor including the leading in prayerand the participation in the other phases of the campaign.85