I was acquainted with him through his son-in-law (one of my best and closest friends) and daughter. His son-in-law planted the church my brother now pastors just a few hours north of us. Through this connection I got to know Dr. Ashbrook a little bit. I got to know him better through his writings. What a blessing to have known him. What glory for him to now be in the presence of our Saviour!

The obituary is here.

An article by another young man he influenced is here.

His publication ministry is here. I am not sure what will happen to this ministry, but perhaps you can still obtain some of his books through them.

We miss him. Mom talks about him all the time. I think about him every day.

For him, though, things are better than they ever were among us.

One day we, too, will know what he now knows.

We know that a dog is just a dog, but we can’t help but think this end is not the way God intended things to be.

NAU  Romans 8:20-22 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

I think this is among the reasons we grieve for the loss of ‘just a dog’. There is of course the end of a loving relationship between man and dog, something different from human relationships, but like them. But there is also this… that the creation in which we live is broken and awaits restoration and repair in the day when the Master sets all things right.

We don’t expect to see our dog in the resurrection. He had no spirit as men have. We do expect to see the setting right of all things.

In the meantime, we remember the delight we enjoyed in our crazy, lovable, gentle Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. His official name was Kentanna London Bobby. He was affectionately known to us by various terms, including “Dumb Dog”. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he always looked good, no matter what he was about.

Here is a picture from his first visit to the vet:

The kids in that picture are now 25, 21, and 19.

And one more picture, coming home from family camp some years back.

If you look closely at that picture, you will see the lettering from my truck mirror: “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR”. Indeed they were.

Kentanna London Bobby
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
March 25, 1997 – October 14, 2011.

Just a dog.

This Poor Man Cried

We have also posted my eulogy, a spoken version of my earlier post about my dad:

Poor Boy off the Farm

May these files be used to edify saints and perhaps even bring a soul to Christ.

(An earlier article on my dad – here, here, here, and here.)

A few years ago, my dad began writing his memoirs. His title was “Poor Boy off the Farm”. It reflects the reality of his life story and something of his insecurities as he battled honorably through life. He was far from ‘poor’ in my mind, though he began life in humble circumstances.

My dad was born as the fifth of six children to a prairie homesteader and an immigrant school teacher from Ireland. My dad’s father could have been better circumstanced, but he rebelled against his father’s insistence on good behaviour at college and decided “I’ll show him,” coming out to Alberta to homestead. My dad’s mother was the daughter of a temperance worker and fine Christian gentleman in Ireland, a charter member of a Baptist church that still stands.

My dad came into the world just in time for the Great Depression, followed by the Second World War for the backdrop to his teenage years. He turned eighteen the year the war ended, so thankfully was spared that conflict. Growing up on the farm during those years meant a good deal of privation – everyone lived in tight circumstances on the prairie farms in those years. But those years made for wonderful stories that my siblings and I will always treasure. “Tell us a story about the farm!” we used to beg, and he would begin, “Once upon a time, there was a farm where lived Charlie, Nancy, Betty, Tommie, and Jakey…”

I am afraid the details of those stories will fade into mist for me now. I won’t be able to ask him about them for a while. Once they cured a dog of stealing eggs by filling a shell full of mustard and hot sauce. Another time they were up and after a fox or a weasel trying to get at their chickens. Once he confronted an aggressive badger out in the fields, armed only with a machete-like knife – no blood ensued, the badger backed off… but for us, what excitement to hear of it later! There was a story of revenge against the bully of his one-room school house… perhaps not too glorious, but we all felt that justice was done.

My dad was a self-taught man, for the most part. His one-room school house only went to grade 9. High school was twenty miles away and meant boarding in town. Dad was needed on the farm, so he took grade 10 by correspondence. It took two years, but I guess that would have caught him up to his age group, he had skipped a couple of grades early on. Later, when I was a little lad,  he took some grade 12 by correspondence also. But he was a reader and a thinker. He read constantly, books on business and Christianity mostly. He read a lot of John R. Rice, as I remember, as well as commentaries and theology. His books are going to be a problem to me, shortly! I think I am going to open a used book store!

As a young man, my dad worked very hard. He spent one winter in a logging camp, somewhere in BC, I think. He worked on a ranch in southern Alberta another winter. And, like many an Alberta lad, he worked in the oil patch after the big discovery in the 1950s. He had stories about that, too. Working on the drilling rigs was tough, dangerous work. The oil patch brought him eventually to my home town where he met my mother. But I need to tell another story before I get to that one.

On one occasion, my dad was headed to his home in east central Alberta, but he stopped off to see an acquaintance from one of his jobs. The man offered him a drink, which led to several more, before my dad got in his car and continued his journey. Fortunately, a police officer spotted him and provided him with an overnight jail cell to sober up. My dad was so embarrassed about this incident that he went to his mother’s pastor when he got home and confessed his misdeed. His pastor counseled him wisely and led him to Christ. My dad never touched another drop of alcohol again. He used to be quite fierce about it. “You’ve never tasted the stuff,” he said to me one time. He didn’t want me to go sideways with my university learning and take any kind of a weak stand about alcohol.

When my dad got work near my home town, he started attending a little church there. It was the first church in our town, part of the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana). My mother was working at a drug store in the town in order to be a help in this particular local church – she was an RN and had also gotten a degree in church work at a Christian college in Oregon. Well, you can see what happened. They met, they fell in love, they got married. And they started a Christian home.

In their first home after marriage, they furnished it partly by making chairs out of orange crates. It was humble beginnings. Dad spent a couple of years trying to sell life insurance in the big city. (I had come along by this time.) After some frustration with that business, he headed back to our home town and the rigs. But he had another idea, general insurance (fire and auto).

While working the rigs, he opened a tiny office to sell insurance. His desk was set on a landing he rented from the local bakery. It couldn’t have been more than 8 x 8 feet – I remember being at his desk as a little boy. He would work graveyard on the rigs, then come to his office during the day and sleep in the afternoons. He told me that sometimes customers would wake him up at his desk in order to buy insurance. After a while (he was too cautious and waited longer than he needed to, he always said), dad quit the rigs and went full time at insurance and real estate. That is where he spent his business life. He was modestly successful at it, expanding his business to a neighboring town (60 miles away, this is the Canadian prairies we are talking about…), and served several terms on our town council as well as most of a term as acting mayor.

Work is not all that defined my dad’s life. His Christian life was not just church attendance on Sunday’s, but lived out in various ways in his life. He personally supported mission work, including the missionary work of my uncle, J. A. (Jake) Johnson. He and my mom supported the education of several young people besides their own in Christian colleges. They faithfully served and supported their own local church.

In our home, my dad was a spiritual force… He was a loving disciplinarian. That meant, at times, corporal punishment. He was always just – except, he thought, one time, when he disciplined me in anger (he says). When I think back, I think he was justified… but we both remember the even vividly, so maybe he is right. But it was more than discipline – he could effect that with just a look… no one ever looked at me like my dad. That look could straighten up Lombard St in San Francisco.

My dad had our respect. He spent many hours talking to us, when we were little – taking us for walks. Reading to us. In Canada we had no Sunday papers at the time, so the coloured comics came on Saturday. I remember when I was only about 5, sitting with my dad at the back of our house one Saturday night. We lived in a ‘skid shack’, an oilpatch house without a foundation, just creosote soaked skids. We had dirt piled around the sides for insulation – and comfortable seats on a summer evening. Dad always took his glasses off to read, but this time, when he was done, asked where he put his glasses. Sure enough we found them, he had sat on them and broken them. A week or two later, we were doing the comics reading routine again and Dad asked again for his glasses. I said, “You aren’t sitting on them, are you?” Sure enough, he had broken them again!

Dad’s reading was particularly significant to me. When I was about 5 or 6 years old, he was reading Bible stories to me from the Egermeiers Bible Story Book (still the best, in my opinion, especially the 1954/6 editions). He would read to me three times a day, after each meal. At that time I started asking him to read the record of the crucifixion. I still remember the picture on the page of a Roman centurion looking at the cross. In my mind, it is in colour, but in the book it is B&W. I used to weep when he read the story and kept asking my Dad, “Why did he have to die? If he was a good man, why did he have to die?”

My Dad patiently explained to me that Jesus died because of our sins, everyone’s sins. He explained to me that I was a sinner and could not save myself. I couldn’t understand it. (After all, I had not yet robbed any banks or murdered anyone – I was only 5 or 6. [Still haven’t done those two things, BTW.]) Dad kept explaining that we are all sinners, we have all sinned. He pointed out times when I had indeed sinned, that proved I was a sinner and Jesus had to die for that.

This went on for several weeks. My mother asked why Dad kept reading the same story when it upset me so much. I kept asking for it, he said. Finally, one night, lying in my bed, my father kneeling at my side, he thought that I seemed to understand. I remember that night vividly. The light from the hall was streaming into my darkened room and the light of the gospel streamed into my heart as I understood I was a sinner and that Jesus died the death I deserve to die. My Dad led me as I prayed and was born again.

Well, my dad didn’t tell my mom what had happened. I was just a kid, after all. A few weeks later, as my mom tells me, she asked him what had gotten into me, I had been so good lately. Then he told her the story.

What do I owe my dad? Everything.

More than that, I owe everything to the God whose grace worked first in my father’s and mother’s hearts and led them to make a Christian home.

I could say a lot more about my dad. But that, I think, is enough for now. Thank God for him, and may God still use my dad’s influence in the lives of me, my brother, my sisters, their families and my own.

I took the picture just after she bought the car. A 1999 Honda Accord, one owner, low miles, mint condition.

We live in such an automobile oriented society, the day you get  your first car is a real milestone for almost everyone, I think. My first car still lingers in my memory, truly loved, though it was a real lemon. I bought a 1972 Dodge Charger in 1977. It only had about 57000 miles on it, as I recall, about the same as my daughter’s Honda. Except… my previous owner was in a different demographic! Those 57,000 miles were hard miles. Several serious issues emerged as I began to get to know the car. We traded it for a 1977 Plymouth Fury after only six months or so.

But it could fly! Memories…

So far we have helped two of our young people with these milestone purchases. Neither of them have ended up with such an impulsive buy as my first, but this one was much more deliberative. My wife went with my daughter on the shopping expeditions. They narrowed it down to a few, then had one of our men go with them to whittle it down to one. The next day, I went along, but I sent my wife in to do the negotiation. I figure that I don’t get blamed for anything this way! They ended up with the price I predicted before the horse trading started.

Now our family can have something else to remember Sept 11 by.

We have decided to attempt the work ourselves. It will save cash. The wear and tear on our inexpert bodies is free!

Here’s a look from the front of our building:

And me running my saw:

Our men installing the gutter brackets:

The beginnings of a new colour scheme:

We’ve been putting in many hours each day. Not my normal sort of activity so I am pretty weary. No energy for arguing on blogs!

That’s probably a good thing!

Dr. Neal was one of my favorite professors (did I have any un-favorites? No). The two seminary classes I remember having with him were New Testament Introduction and a theology class on Pneumatology – the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. That Pneumatology class was at 8 am, MWF. Man… Dr. Neal was a fine teacher and a fine man, but his presentation was dry! I remember after that class running into him (in the presence of my future wife) and trying to make some off hand comment about how hard it was for me to stay awake that early in the morning. It was one of those comments that just didn’t come out the way you wanted it to… But Dr Neal just smiled and took it with his usual grace.

Dr. Neal had a wonderful sense of himself. Legend has it that when he was teaching Systematic Theology one time he brought an alarm clock to class and hid it in his desk, set to go off halfway through his lecture. I wish I could have been there!

He is the one who also gave that insight that Paul was a Southern Jew because he always says “you all” in the Greek. I think that one was in a Greek Bible book class, but I can’t remember which one.

I am sure there were other classes I had with him but I’ll have to look them up later. I am on the road picking up youngsters coming home from BJU for Christmas.

But I thought I’d just reminisce a bit about a fine Christian man who simply was faithful and poured his life into hundreds of young men. You have to love guys like that.

I’m sure the Lord does.

These letters are personal correspondence between my uncle and my dad. The two previous letters were from my dad to officials in the denomination. My dad evidently sent copies to my uncle, who responded with the letter that follows. My dad then replied which I am posting below. I am again leaving out personal names and since these are personal letters I will add a bit of editorial comment in brackets [like this] to explain things that might not be obvious.

June 5th,1980

Dear Tom,

Thank you for your letter and the copies of the letters sent by yourself to the Editor of the Contact and to XXX XXXXX. I felt that they were well written and to the point. I have written XXXXXX on several occasions, one in response to the same article your letter was directed to, and have not received an answer. I have written XXX XXXXX several times concerning the school and with regard to one comment he made towards conservative brethren who did not go along with him. I did not receive a reply to that particular thing but he has replied to some of my concerns regarding the school.

I must share with you the information that I wrote Brother XXXXXXXX, a reply to his article in the Contact. I had just preached a sermon titled: The Holy Spirit and The Holy Word in which I declared Bible truth concerning it’s inspiration and how the Holy Spirit is received and companions us in relationship to it’s direct authority to us. I used text in II Timothy 3 where Paul speaks to Timothy words given by revelation of the Holy Spirit concerning apostacy to come. He calls Timothy’s attention to the Scriptures as “Holy” and thus a priority in direction of how to he saved and worship God in Spirit and in truth… Kingdom experience and Kingdom reality.

[The man mentioned here was a dear friend of our family, at this point in time sort of a senior statesman in the Church of God in Western Canada. He had been a pastor in the denomination and was a prolific author, championing especially amillennialism. He was a godly, saintly man, but quite loyal to the party machine.]

I pointed out to Brother XXXXXXXX the fact that Paul not only “Knew whom He believed” but what he believed and that many of his epistles to the churches were corrective of situations that existed in ethics and in doctrinal disarray. The Scripture does not just point to Christ it declares His authority and Lordship in all matters pertaining to godliness of mind, spirit and body. The idea of the power of opinions and existential discovery of truth apart from Scripture in these areas is dangerous and downright disobedient. His reply was cordial and appreciative of what I shared but he still seemed infatuated with his novel idea that the “Bible is a window not a Wall”. To me that is a term that relegates the Scripture to a “Reference book” to he used if necessary and in emergency.

I don’t believe he appreciated the fact I shared with him that God still has a witness in this matter and that He has raised up many brethren of insight and not particularly associated with the Church of God movement, although I have encounted [sic] some. Sad to say, some have already passed from the scene and are home with the Lord.

I have a distinct feeling that some of the pastors are beginning to view me with some suspicion and concern due to my conservative stand while other definitely are of like mind in many areas. Perhaps the Lord will turn some things around. It will not be without persistence and without a voice being heard. We must temper criticism with objective love declared for the Lord who bought us with so great a price and the Word He has given to be “The Faith once delivered to the Saints” of both covenant ages… that word of salvation and grace diligently heeded.

[signed]

The following letter is my dad’s reply to my uncle:

June 12, 1980

Dear XXXXX:

I appreciate your letter, and encourage you in the firm doctrinal opinions that you espouse.

I recognize that you are looked at askance by the liberal minded and compromisers among your fellow ministers in the Church of God in Western Canada. My opinion is that they constitute about 2/3 of the fellowship between them. The liberals are always moving to the left as fast as they dare, and the compromisers, who constitute a majority with whichever of the left or right wing groups they choose to vote with, are too gutless and morally weak to take a position and root out the incipient heresy and declension that infects the organization.

The truth of the matter that you have been discussing with Mr. XXXXXXXX, and others, is that the Word illuminates and defends those who trust in the Word and are willing to be guided by it. Therefore the Bible is both a window, and a wall to these ones.

It appears to me that those who choose to compromise themselves considerably both as to doctrine and association, are rather firmly entrenched in the schools at Anderson & Portland and in Camrose, as well as in the management and distribution of the curriculum preparation for the Sunday School.

I believe that it is unrealistic to think that these situations can be turned around.

That is the major reason why my children are being educated elsewhere. The other primary reason is doctrinal emphasis. I believe that Arminianism readily lends itself to the trend to rationalistic, humanistic religious reasoning, due to its undue emphasis on the human part of the religious equation; and I believe that A-millennialism readily lends itself to a rationalizing of the Word of God and to minimizing the importance of an explicit adherence to the Word in doctrinal matters.

[These issues were bones of contention between my uncle and my dad. As a pastor in the denomination, he accepted their general theological framework. To the annoyance of many, my dad insisted on being premillennial. The CoG is fully Arminian, a church in the Wesleyan Holiness tradtion, teaching the Second Blessing of sinless perfectionism. I am not sure how much of the perfectionism my uncle would accept. In opposing the Arminianism, my dad is not asserting a Calvinist point of view. He opposed that as vigorously as he opposed Arminianism.]

I realize that there has been serious error and religious decline in many other religious organizations as well as the Arminian and A-millennial groups, but I believe that in these latter mentioned the trend is much more pervasive and pronounced.

Our primary responsibilities are first of all to God, Next to ourselves, and thirdly to our families, and after that to the Christian community. One cannot afford to sacrifice loyalty to God, to self and to family on the altar of an expedient relationship to any religious group. It just is not worth it and never can be. If we fail our God, ourselves, our families, who is able to recompense us for the loss. No man or group of men can do this.

Sincerely

[signed]

T. W. D. Johnson

A little more on the issue of ‘creedlessness’ I was reading over at the CoG website today and found this explanation of their position:

As affirmed in condensations such as “The Apostles Creed,” the Church of God holds to the teachings of historical Christianity:

* The Trinity.
* The Bible as God’s written word, only rule of faith and practice.
* The Birth, Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament.
* Salvation by faith in Jesus and His atoning death on the cross.
* The gift of the Holy Spirit to those who receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour.
* The return of Christ at the close of the age.
* Judgment and Eternal rewards, heaven and hell.

Orthodox Christians may hold varying opinions on secondary or peripheral doctrine. Within the Church of God there is no insistence that everyone conform their ideas on minute points.

Allowing people with honest hearts and minds to search the Scripture’s leads, with the Holy Spirit’s help to an amazing consensus. Experience has shown that formation of the great historic creeds of the church served a purpose in delineating orthodoxy from heresy. Experience has also shown that creed formation has exacerbated divisions between Christians when it was not necessary. For this reason, in the interest of unity, the Church of God Movement has shied away from the drafting of an official statement of beliefs. Such works of systematic distillation of doctrine from Scripture have severe human limitations and tend to be dated. The Movement has preferred to confine itself to the spirit-inspired Scripture, treating our own interpretations of it with humility and those of others who differ with charity.

 

The problem with avoiding the divisions caused by creeds is that anything goes. If you search through the CoG newsletters you will find numerous women pastors. I don’t have access to any of the current positions of those teaching or leading the denominational school, I doubt that it has improved much since the days that prompted these letters.

My uncle passed away with brain cancer, my dad was one voice for conservative theology in a sea of opposition. As my dad aged, he was stricken by Parkinsons disease. His involvment has been severely limited since. They were unsuccessful in their efforts, but I applaud their efforts.

One of my uncle’s sons is a pastor in this group. He has apparently not taken as conservative a stand as his dad did.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

April 22, 1980

The Editor
Gospel Contact
4703 – 56 Street
Camrose, Alberta

Dear Sir:

Re. your editorial – March/April issue as to the matter of belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.

You suggest the matter of belief or disbelief in the inerrancy of the Bible as a standard of Christian orthodoxy is unnecessarily divisive and should be scrapped. You also suggest that belief in the inerrancy of the Bible is not scientifically accurate and you stress the value of personal experience with person of Christ as the primary evaluation of personal Christian faith.

In effect you are saying there should no standard as to Christian doctrine, Christian belief or Christian conduct except the vagaries of personal experience and the self qualified claims of those who may claim to be “true Christians”, whatever that may be taken to be.

What would you or anyone know of Christ except for the revelation of Christ that is made known to man in the Bible? What is to be the qualification of a “true Christian” if the standards for belief and conduct set out in the Bible are not used? Whose “experience” is to be the authority in these matters, as personal experience is a very variegated thing? Many have been known to have had deluded experiences.

What is your motivation in taking the position that belief in the inerrancy of the Bible should not be a standard of orthodoxy? Are you an apologist for some person or persons who are unorthodox, and if so, what is their relationship to yourself? What are their supposed Christian qualifications and beliefs?

As to the “scientific” accuracy of a belief in the Bible, possibly you could explain as to what “scientific” accuracy is, and in so doing you might comment on the numerous “scientifically accurate” opinions that have later been invalidated by new discoveries in various fields of learning.

Sincerely,

[signed]

T. W. D. Johnson

The doctrine of inerrancy is usually at the heart of controversies with modernism and evangelicalism. This is the crux of ‘the faith’. If we lose ground here, we lose ground everywhere. Those who waver have wavered somewhere either in their belief in the inerrant Word or in their submission to it.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3