I remember William F. Buckley many years ago telling a guest on “Firing Line” that you can get away with mentioning the word “God” once, and maybe twice, at a party. But three times and you’ll never get invited back.

The man who no sooner graduated from Yale in 1950 than he excoriated his alma mater’s defection from Christ in God and Man at Yale might be amused by the following excerpt from the “Testimony of Harvard College against George Whitefield” (1744), signed by that institution’s President, Professors, Tutors, and Hebrew Instructor:

In regard to the danger which we apprehend the people and churches of this land are in, on the account of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield we have tho’t ourselves oblig’d to bear our testimony, in this public manner, against him and his way of preaching, as tending very much to the detriment of religion and the entire destruction of the order of these churches of Christ, which our fathers have taken such care and pains to settle, as by the platform, according to which the discipline of the churches of New England is regulated: and we do therefore hereby declare, that we look upon his going about, in an itinerant way, especially as he hath much of an enthusiastic turn, utterly inconsistent with the peace and order…of these churches of Christ….

You can always tell when the church of Christ is going bad, by these two marks:

1) It still uses lots of God words.

2) Its zeal is not for Christ but for “church order.”