THIMK CONTEST
That THIMK! sign has tickled advertisers, who have thumk up a whole deck of ironic placards. Doc Bromyde, our druggist, showed me his stunning collection, from a supplier who keeps pharmaceuticals moving on the spoof.
Delighted to help you out—there’s the door.
I would like to compliment you on your work—when will you start?
Whistling home with my aspirin, I passed the illuminated board in front of the Gospel Tabernacle. In bold moveable letters was the message: Welcome, Friend. Sing and Smile and Pay. I stopped whistling, walked up on the lawn to investigate. An “r” was in the bottom of the sign case.
That was reassuring, but it set me to thimking. Sooner or later ecclesiastical thimkagrams will be on us. Remember the sign on the Third Street Church? A pedestrian is a married man with two cars and a teen-age daughter. That admirable bit of kerygma had been chosen by the sexton from a mimeographed treasury of gems kept with the alphabets for the sign board.
Since it was next to last on his list, there is a man who will go across the board with thimkagrams before the imk is dry on the first release he gets.
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. That one has been popularized in sacred song and has a future as long as its past.
After much thought, I am pleased to announce a THIMK contest. No entry may be longer than ten words. Address them to THIMK, Eutychus! care of this magazine. The winners will receive a plaster plaque with the legend, “I thought!” Remember, Sharing pays, when you own the shares! Your contributions will raise the level of the abysmal. The losers will render even greater service toward killing this whole thing off.
And perhaps someone will think of a better source of bulletin board barbs.
EUTYCHUS
DIFFERENT FIELDS
Leitch’s review of Hebert’s book on Fundamentalism seems to me a typical piece of “playing on different fields,” a failure of joining issues with the author.
Hebert saw the possibility of discussion with conservative evangelicals. He stated at the beginning and the closing of the book that it lay in the spirit of Christian fellowship. Leitch took this to imply that fundamental issues are therefore to be ignored. Is this really so? For the point was just what these fundamentals are, and whether the differences in question, upon examination, are such as to preclude Christian fellowship, or friendly conversation.
This is why the claims of The Fundamentals were taken by Hebert seriously as an acceptable point of entry into the discussion. In comparison with them he stated what to him constituted the fundamentals of the Christian faith, to which evangelicals today might agree. On this basis one could hope to locate and define in an intelligible context the main question at issue. This is the question concerning the nature of biblical truth, and Hebert dealt with it at length, showing the strength and weakness of the high doctrine of Scriptures, and relating it to the evangelical ethos as a whole, which he also evaluated before he closed the discussion.
Is such an approach to the problem not reasonable and clear enough for the reviewer? Instead of giving his readers a semblance of the substance of the argument of the book, Leitch made it appear to be an incoherent mixture of false charges and minor issues, thereby dismissing it as making no contribution to the discussion in the main. This seems to me a convenient way to dodge the main issue Hebert raised so unmistakably in the book.
It is this: Does the doctrine of verbal inspiration (the mark of “Fundamentalism”) not involve a “materialistic” view of truth, or an intellectualistic conception of revelation? Can either of them be justified on biblical grounds? Finally, the question was also raised whether a high doctrine of Scriptures (mark of evangelicalism), like a high Christology, may not fall into the danger of monophysitism.
On such central questions our reviewer did not say a word, not a word of information even (except some vague reference to Warfield’s work in the past, and some kind of “Q.E.D.” in the future). Was the review meant to show that there is a set of rules that makes it impossible to play with a visitor even in the home field?
Divinity School
University of Chicago
• Dr. Leitch did acknowledge that certain of Father Hebert’s criticisms of Fundamentalism are well-founded. But he stated that while Hebert rightly posed the question of inspiration as central in the discussion of Fundamentalism, he misrepresented the fundamentalist doctrine of Scripture. Thus the real issues were not properly faced.—ED.
BAPTIST CHALLENGE
A move was made in 1957 when Southern Baptists entered New York City with organized work. Some are asking, “Why are Southern Baptists in New York?” There are a number of reasons.…
More than half the people of this vast metropolis of eight million souls are not connected with any church of any kind. It therefore constitutes a great mission field.
Though New York is not the world’s biggest city, in New York more different races impinge on each other than in any other city in the world; and Southern Baptists have an extensive program of ministry to racial groups.
In New York the housing pattern for the next 50 years is now being fixed. The city is engaged in a redevelopment program in which within the next five years thirty-five church buildings will be tom down and land cleared for huge housing projects. As this program proceeds, land is offered in these housing areas.… During the past three years such offers have been declined because denominations were not ready to act on them. Already Southern Baptists have been warmly welcomed by those who hope we can do something about the situation.…
Baptists have an historic witness to the fact that the church is a fellowship of New Testament believers and is not a sectional or a national thing. This was the emphasis of John Smyth in Holland 350 years ago. So Southern Baptists move into this area of need not as invaders but as allies with all who are seeking to promote the cause of Jesus Christ, believing “there is no competition between lighthouses.”
No other Baptist group is promoting a program of church-sponsored missions in greater New York and there are vast residential areas where Baptist churches of any kind are non-existent in the “world’s largest concentration of urban development.”
In their program to evangelize America and establish 30,000 churches and missions between now and 1964, Southern Baptists, as America’s fastest growing major denomination, believe they have an obligation to America’s major city.
Southern Baptist Chapel
New York City
Some of us might fear that Dr. Dawson is getting perilously near to wishful thinking when he says that our Convention is a “representative, deliberate” body. I’m a Southern Baptist but I could wish that our Convention were a little more that way.…
First Baptist Church
Independence, Virginia
CHRISTIANITY TODAY (Jan. 20 issue) had a number of encouraging articles … you are to be congratulated … especially for the editorials.…
In view of the considerable amount of energy, money and means put into religious effort, is it not time that we ask ourselves “What makes religion, especially Christianity ‘click’? Have we been going in the right direction?” …
It is refreshing to be told … that some are seeing the light … perhaps a little dimly, but nevertheless the tendency is in the direction of biblical theology. Let us pray earnestly that the tendency will reach flood tide before very long.…
I happen to be a member of a Southern Baptist church. The article “What Future for Southern Baptists?” made interesting reading. On second thought, however, its content gives little of which to boast.… When we consider our numerical membership of 8,750,000 we may feel strong, but we are not necessarily so when … in the past year the total contribution to missions was just over 14 million dollars, a per capita rate of about $1.60 per year. Many … denominations far exceed that.
Our goal is 30,000 more churches by 1964. Perhaps it would be better had we put the goal in terms of people, say 3 million people won to Christ or 100 for each of the new churches. While our Home Missions effort shows some vigor, our Foreign Missions effort involves only one missionary for each 8750 members. We might better set the figure at one missionary for each 875 members—small enough goal. Yet that would mean 10,000 missionaries. So it seems we have our work cut out for us, and that can be said of many another group.…
Washington, D.C.
SEPARATION, PENETRATION
Penetration is not the answer but separation.… We may not agree with all that separationists like McIntire, Rice, and others say, but they, like Luther and Calvin, are at least identifying the enemy and warning God’s people about him.…
First Bible Presbyterian Church
Woden, Iowa
When I read your editorial, “Theology, Evangelism, Ecumenism,” (Jan. 20 issue) … I knew I must write you. That is one of the finest, most pertinent editorials that I have ever read in a religious periodical.
Nazarene Theological Seminary
Kansas City, Mo.
EVANGELICAL RADIO
The report … entitled “Evangelical Broadcasting Outlook” (Jan. 6 issue) is most interesting. I particularly appreciated the attempt of the author to present a balanced view.…
I was somewhat disturbed … to see the biased reporting quoted from United Evangelical Action … involving Station WGY.… I took the opportunity to visit WGY to discuss the new policy with the management.
I found that they were not at all antagonistic to evangelical programs.…
It seems that this attitude on the part of many evangelicals is doing more harm toward disturbing their relations with the broadcasting industry than the things which they fearfully suspect on the part of other groups.…
The Evangelical Foundation
Philadelphia, Pa.
IN THE FACE OF DEATH
In a sense every patient that we meet is dying. That is the only really certain thing about our entire life, and in a special sense those who are without Christ are truly “dead men on furlough.” I feel that our basic attitude toward the living dead around us should be the same as our attitude toward the dying dead in the hospital.
For the Christian patient death is a great victory. It is our privilege as Christian physicians to enter into that wonderful encounter with Christ and help make the last mile a truly victorious one. And those who are at death’s door without Christ as Saviour and Lord must never pass through without some word from the Christian physician in attendance. Certainly God is capable of changing the heart of the patient dying in darkness just as he moved the dying thief on the cross and quickly translated him to paradise.
Grand Rapids, Mich.
May I submit several facts to supplement what was set forth re the believer’s death?
Death is behind the believer, in that he has been identified with Christ in His death unto sin (Rom. 6, etc.).
The believer’s life is already beyond death, “for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).
In that God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6), for those in Christ the gap has already been bridged, and it is just as simple as Paul puts it: “Willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).
Director
Deeper Life Publications
Warrenville, Ill.
PRESERVING THE BALANCES
I like the balance of learned articles and sermons. Each refreshes the other.…
First Church of God
Pocatello, Idaho
Without any reservation … your publication is the best periodical crossing my desk.
Menomonie Gospel Tabernacle
Menomonie, Wis.
It is one of the most … if not the most valuable magazine that comes to my desk.… Like especially your book reviews, your “Bible Book or Text of the month” …
La Paz, Bolivia
I do not have words to express the blessing it has been to me this last year. I have looked for twenty years for just this kind of help in the work of the pastorate.…
Second Baptist Church
Arkadelphia, Ark.
• CHRISTIANITY TODAY wishes to thank its fine family of subscribers, almost 30% of whom renewed their charter subscriptions before actual expiration date.—ED.
