Eutychus and His Kin: July 20, 1962

Summer Symphony

One delight of a blistering Philadelphia summer is the concert series of the symphony orchestra in Robin Hood Dell. Some regard mass popularity of these free outdoor concerts as evidence of the high culture of Philadelphia. Having been raised in a Philadelphia row house, I would credit the high humidity. Old residents who used to sit on the front steps now sit on a bench in the park and cool off to music.

Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, or Stravinskyโ€”itโ€™s all cool music as it comes floating back from the twelve speakers of the orchestra shell. Starlings and sparrows plunge into the sunset through the rising waterfall of melody, while the flag begins to ripple above the violins. Colorful patches of people on the hillside across the Dell compose a Seurat painting in the stillness. As the light fades, they become a misty vision by Monet; at last only cigarette-lighter fireflies punctuate the darkness.

Under the stage lights a pianist is playing, his fingers flying with the blurring beat of insect wings, and escapes the pounce of the brasses. His ecstasy subsides and the clear silence of thousands hangs on two fingers twinkling in an upper octave of the keyboard.

The concluding coda of the full orchestra breaks the spell, and the magic ends in applause. The stadium lights go up. Vendors leap into the aisles: โ€œWhoโ€™ll hev ize crim, body-buildinโ€™ ize crim.โ€ฆโ€ The intermission crush presses a bearded student against a portly woman in a purple dress, purple earrings and a purple pansy hat.

Yet I know that somehow Beethoven has put a religious question, perhaps in spite of himself. Music is more than summer mystique, and it is also more than cooling reverie. It opens meaning for man.

After the intermission the orchestra played Stravinsky: a composition on the Psalms. The choir sang a mournful, โ€œLaudate, alleluiaโ€ to the dissonant moan of bass viols throbbing with inconsolable grief. I wondered what our gospel disc-jockey would make of the thousands of students who sat listening.

EUTYCHUS

Pressure On Saturday

I would like to protest the scheduling that allows an issue such as the one received today (June 8) to come to a pastorโ€™s desk on Saturday morning. You know that even though a sermon may be prepared early in the week, it is improved by last-minute polishing, and your cover page featuring โ€œThe Pastor and His Peopleโ€ with its fascinating and practical articles found me incapable of waiting until Monday morning.

It would also be helpful if you would put such โ€œspecial issuesโ€ within hard covers, so that the frequent usage which they will receive will not shorten the period of their usefulness.

Aside from these minor evidences of thoughtlessness, you are doing a great job in a great way. Thank you sincerely!

WESLEY P. HUSTAD

First Baptist

Marshalltown, Iowa

Due to the fact that I am a young minister just out of seminary, this issue proved to be one of the most stimulating and helpful I have received. The editorial โ€œThe Pastor and His Peopleโ€ was worth the price of a yearโ€™s subscription.โ€ฆ

EUGENE TESTER

Germantown Christian Church

Germantown, Ky.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY.โ€ฆ is truly a pastorโ€™s helper. The โ€ฆ issue was superb.

ROBERT PINDER

Tangelo Baptist Church

Orlando, Fla.

The Virgin Birth

Helen H. Colbert (Eutychus, June 8 issue) may truthfully believe in private interpretation. However, if she believes this symbolic view of the Virgin Birth โ€ฆ she is being led by something other than the God who led the Gospel writers.โ€ฆ

NORRIS ONSTEAD

First Baptist Church

Anson, Tex.

In Praise Of Perception

I rejoiced to read the sound and searching words from the pen and heart of minister Raymond P. Jennings (โ€œRace and Reconciliation: We Reserve the Rightโ€) in your issue of June 8.

The compass-quality comments โ€ฆ pointing to the unchanging poles of Christian freedom and reconciliation โ€ฆ drew my heart to the soul of this perceptive servant of the Lord. His call to selfless and compassionate awareness of other human persons should be passed on from the redeemed men to those who are bound until many shall sense with assurance that God indeed cares for their lives.

MILTON LEHMAN

Mennonite Central Committee

Akron, Pa.

On The Trinity

Thank you so much for your presentation of โ€ฆ โ€œThe Glory of the Eternal Trinityโ€ (May 25 issue). A more concise statement on this essential doctrine of the faith would be most difficult to find.โ€ฆ

I find nothing in the New Testament that would give any indicationโ€”however slightโ€”of any recognition of the possibility that there may be an apparent conflict between two roots of New Testament teaching and preaching: (1) belief in the ancient creed of the Jews, which was brought over into the New Testament by our Lord himself, โ€œHear O Israel: the Lord our God, He is one Lordโ€ โ€ฆ; and (2) belief in โ€œGod the Father, Creator of heaven and earthโ€; โ€œGod the Son, Redeemer of the worldโ€; โ€œGod the Holy Ghost, Sanctifier of the faithful.โ€ I can find nothing in the New Testament that would resolve these two statements into the glorious proclamation, โ€œO holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, one Godโ€ (Book of Common Prayer, p. 54). Actually, it would seem much easier to draw the conclusion that Christianity is a tritheistic religion if we depend solely on the New Testament for our knowledge of the three Persons of the Trinity, because their unity in the Godhead is not made clear. Only when it was realized that careless believers and critics could twist the faith completely out of shape and to destruction, was any attempt made to resolve the apparent conflict between one God and three Persons.

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not a New Testament doctrine, but it is required to insure the purity of the Gospel proclaimed by the New Testament. It is not an imposition on the New Testament proclamation, but rather it is developed from, and limited to (this is essential) New Testament teaching.

JOHN M. FLANIGEN

Trinity Episcopal Church

Pinopolis, S. C.

The Churchโ€™S Arm

After reading the letter from Mr. Hatfield (May 25 issue) โ€ฆ, I got to thinking.โ€ฆ

Why canโ€™t the church make up its budget according to the need to reach all strata of our society? For instance, the church could have a ministry through the missions, among the alcoholics, among the children (like Child Evangelism), among teen-agers (like Young Life, YFC, HiBA), among college students (like IVCF, Campus Crusade for Christ), among foreign students (like International Students, Inc.), among officers in the service (like Officersโ€™ Christian Union), among leaders in the government (like ICL), among businessmen (CBMC) and other groups.

Each of these groups is doing a job for the Lord, and each needs financial help, prayer support, and the interest of the local church. They are the churchโ€™s arm and not in competition with the church.

FRED TAYLOR

Philadelphia, Pa.

Iowan From Missouri

Concerning your article on Barth in Chicago (News, May 11 issue): Not only Barth, but most of our seminaries are teaching that the Scriptures are โ€œsullied with errors, theological as well as historical.โ€

Would you or some of your readers please tell me what these errors are? I have studied Greek and Hebrew and read my Bible for a few decades and I have never been able to find these errors.

A young minister recently informed me that he had found 24 mistakes in the Bible. But when I challenged him he could not produce one. In fact, he told me that he did not know his Bible. He had little training in the English Bible.

JOHN R. STEVENSON

United Presbyterian Church

Allerton, Iowa

On J. D. Salinger

Re โ€œA New Crisis in Adolescenceโ€ by Ronald C. Doll (May 11 issue) โ€ฆ: The attack upon J. D. Salingerโ€™s Catcher in the Rye referred to it as โ€œliteratureโ€ (his quotation marks) with perversions in it, spiced with profane language. The only โ€œperversionโ€ in this book is a confused non-Christian boy searching for meaning in life. He doesnโ€™t find any help, and has a mental breakdown. The book is not โ€œspicedโ€ with profanity; the boy uses monotonous teen-age profanity and slang because Salinger obviously is truthful about the society he is portraying. This society is non-Christian.

Would Mr. Doll smugly refer to Macbeth as โ€œliteratureโ€ in (quotation marks) because the characters are lost sinners who speak such lines as โ€œOut, damned spotโ€?

MRS. KATHRYN LINDSKOOG

Orange, Calif.

I felt that the article โ€ฆ was most significant and sobering.

R. C. CHRISTOPHERSON

First Baptist Church

North Las Vegas, Nev.

Where God Is Banished

Thanks for โ€œScripture in the Schoolroom?โ€ (May 11 issue).โ€ฆ It is one of the ironies of the American government and its people to be fighting atheistic communism within and without national boundaries, while at the same time condoning a secularized educational system that banishes God from the universe he created, and is designed to inculcate into the minds of American youth atheistic beliefs identical with Russian ideology-attended by a laxity of morals and discipline of which the Russians would be ashamed.โ€ฆ

SHEM PEACHEY

Quarryville, Pa.

Younger Churches In Need

Theological seminaries and their students in the younger churches in mission lands need books badly. Would retired ministers, teachers and librarians who can share their books or wish to dispose of their libraries gratis toward this purpose please contact the undersigned.

GRAHAM R. HODGES

Emmanuel Congregational Church

Watertown, N. Y.

Adoption

Might it not be that Calvin makes no allusion whatever to โ€œAdoptionโ€ (April 27 issue) because it is not identical to the New Birth, and is not to be confused with it? It seems that the Bible very clearly shows the meaning of the word in the five passages where it is used.โ€ฆ In Galatians 4:1โ€“7, โ€œadoptionโ€ pertains to him who is already โ€œheir,โ€ and a โ€œchildโ€ born into Godโ€™s family. It was desired that such a child should come of age, and enter into his inheritance. The prodigal โ€œson,โ€ when he came to his majority could ask for the portion of goods that fell to him, and did. The passage from Galatians would show that huiothesia applies to the child and heir, and not to bringing a servant into a place of sonship. Israel was a โ€œchildโ€ under the Law until Christ redeemed from the Law, and this โ€œadoptionโ€ pertained to them (Rom. 9:4).โ€ฆ

WILLIAM G. LOWE

Berlin Bible Church

Narrowsburg, N. Y.

A Different Purpose

Re โ€œA Great Gulf Fixed in Scottish Ecumenismโ€ (Editorial, Apr. 27 issue): I am sure your writer โ€ฆ spoke in sincerity, but perhaps if he had realized the true nature of the incident โ€ฆ he would have been inclined to take a different view. It is not true that Dr. Craig traveled across half a continent to see the Pope. He was in Rome for a very different purpose altogether, and while there paid a courtesy visit on the Pope.

You surely would not advocate Christian men playing such childish games as โ€œIโ€™m not speaking to youโ€ in this day and generation when the whole world is tom by strife and divided by hostility.โ€ฆ

R. A. ELDER

Johore Bahru, Malaya

Call For Counterattack

Practically every sermon preached in churches belonging to the National Council emphasizes the dignity and significance of the individual as a child of God. This is a positive answer to the left-wingersโ€™ socialistic and communistic emphasis. The churches did not get down to naming specific groups until they were attacked by a right-wing group publicly professing to use Communist methods. Donโ€™t you think churches should attack any group practicing Communist methodsโ€”or is this, too, something you omit from your philosophy?

FRANCIS A. HOFFMAN

The Overbrook Presbyterian Church

Columbus, Ohio

Praiseworthy Patience

Since much of the subject matter โ€ฆ is of a timeless nature, it does not dismay us โ€ฆ that our copies of the welcome magazine arrive a couple of months after date of issue.

This tardiness explains my failure to write earlier in warm appreciation of your splendid readable issue of March 40 with the subject of missions as its leading feature. Some of the articles were the most penetrating I have yet come across in mission literature.โ€ฆ

ROLF VEENSTRA

Sudan United Mission

N. Nigeria, W. Africa

Our Latest

News

Died: Jack Iker, Anglican Who Drew the Line at Womenโ€™s Ordination

The Texas bishop fought a bitter legal battle with the Episcopal Church and won.

Why Canโ€™t We Talk to Each Other Anymore?

Online interactions are draining us of energy to have hard conversations in person.

Church Disappointment Is Multilayered

Jude 3 Project founder Lisa Fields speaks about navigating frustrations with God and fellow believers.

The Robot Will Lie Down With the Gosling

In โ€œThe Wild Robot,โ€ hospitality reprograms relationships.

How Priscilla Shirer Surrenders All

The best-selling Bible teacher writes about putting God first in her life and how healthy Christian discipleship requires sacrifice

The Bulletin

Second Hand News

The Bulletin talks presidential podcasts, hurricane rumors, and the spiritual histories of Israel and Iran.

Which Church in Revelation Is Yours Like?

From the lukewarm Laodicea to the overachieving Ephesus, these seven ancient congregations struggled with relatable problems.

Apple PodcastsDown ArrowDown ArrowDown Arrowarrow_left_altLeft ArrowLeft ArrowRight ArrowRight ArrowRight Arrowarrow_up_altUp ArrowUp ArrowAvailable at Amazoncaret-downCloseCloseEmailEmailExpandExpandExternalExternalFacebookfacebook-squareGiftGiftGooglegoogleGoogle KeephamburgerInstagraminstagram-squareLinkLinklinkedin-squareListenListenListenChristianity TodayCT Creative Studio Logologo_orgMegaphoneMenuMenupausePinterestPlayPlayPocketPodcastRSSRSSSaveSaveSaveSearchSearchsearchSpotifyStitcherTelegramTable of ContentsTable of Contentstwitter-squareWhatsAppXYouTubeYouTube