EDITORIAL -- "Cows for Korea" Again

Cecil Willis
Marion, Indiana

A few years ago some of our brethren concocted the preposterous project of inducing churches to assist in sending a herd of dairy cattle to the Korea Christian College. Some of our liberal brethren who pretend to be strongly opposed to congregational support of colleges in this country tent their encouragement to the "Cows for Korea" project in various ways.

In the Jan. 20, 1972 Gospel Advocate Brother David Goolsby wrote an article entitled "Reflections on Four Years in Korea." Brother Goolsby stated that when the "Cows for Korea" project was gotten underway in 1963, some objectors opined, "It will always be a financial liability-never a real asset to anything!" Another critic in dismay said, "Now the church is in the cattle raising business." Brother Goolsby did not state how he answered this brother. Another brother asked, "How can a cow preach the Gospel?" Now, that is a right good question! Nevertheless, Brother Goolsby assures us that the continuation of the "Cows for Korea" project is "A wonderful project for brethren and congregations to support." I call attention to the fact that Brother Goolsby unabashedly solicits the funds of churches for this project.

Brother Goolsby relates the sad tale of the near death of one of their "best pedigreed registered heifers" which nearly "died after giving birth to a 110 pound calf. Here is Brother Goolsbys report: "We just could not believe it was Gods will for the life of that dear animal to just bleed out like that. Someone said, dont you think we should pray? So we dropped to our knees and prayed -- and how wonderfully God answered our prayers! The hemorrhaging stopped; Pansy lived! ... The Almighty knows no bounds for his infinite power -- geographical or biological!"

Some of our Holy Spirit filled brethren in this country have been relating some rather weird doings of the Lord lately, but they will have to come up with some tale to outdo this one told by Brother Goolsby. God, in answer to prayer, suddenly stopped the hemorrhaging Holstein heifer. It is too bad that God does not take the same interest in the steer about to be butchered for beef.

The Gospel Advocate devotes three full pages to Brother Goolsbys report, and to his fund raising pitch directed to churches in America. It is astounding what some brethren will use the funds of churches to support. Some of the brethren who say they are opposed to church support of colleges in this country think nothing is wrong with such a practice overseas. And if we are talking about work to be done elsewhere, some brethren will raid the treasury of the church to subsidize nearly any kind of work.

Brother Goolsby tells of "Sambo," "the most royal figure of all" in the Korean Christian College Farms herd. Goolsby said, "No other regal figure has caused such a stir in Korea since King Sejong invented the Korean alphabet several hundred years ago." Why "Sambo" comes from the "most aristocratic and royal bloodlines of the Holstein-Friesian breed." He has the blue blood flowing in his veins of Mooseheart Royal Aim, Ronhub Nanna Ormsby Sally, "and Wisconsin Admiral Burke Lad appears on Sambos 30-generation pedigree six different times!" Would you believe it???? And would you believe that some brethren believe it is the work of the church to buy animals like this? That is a bit hard to believe, isnt it?

Brother Goolsby is now seeking $80,000 from American churches. It seems that that earlier critic, who said "It will always be a financial liability . . ." might have been about right, doesnt it? Brother Goolsby tells us, "The KCC board of directors has launched a drive to raise the $80,000 needed to put KCC squarely on its own two feet, financially."

Now when a church donates to this fund raising drive, just exactly what is it buying with its money? Well, Brother Goolsby tells us exactly. "The $80,000 will go for such needs as buying a new tractor and an electric milker, adding to the barn, taking electricity to the barn, building a silo, constructing an access road, acquiring additional land, purchasing 20 registered Holsteins and transporting them from California, building a dairy farm managers residence and providing him with a vehicle."

Now if brethren are gullible enough to think that such items are the work God assigned to His church, I guess fellows like me might as well give up. But just wait and see! Some of the brethren in Gospel Advocate land will take the money out of the treasury of the church, which money was contributed to do the work of the church, and send it for the Korea Christian College "Cows for Korea" project. And then some of the Gospel Advocate writers will still have the audacity to write that the Lords church has a spiritual mission. Well, it has! And buying registered Holstein cows for a college in Korea is no part of the Divine Bodys work, regardless of what someone in the Gospel Advocate (which they still like to call "The Old Reliable") has to say in its defense.

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 25, pp. 3-4
April 27, 1972