ASLEEP IN THE DEEP
Whilst I was munching away at my daily assignment of Girl Scout Cookies, my mind turned to deeper things. I state that everybody, and I mean everybody, is reading or is at least aware of that book, Honest to God. I try not to be jealous of its marvelous sale. I try to criticize objectively. But most of all I try to figure out its enormous appeal.
I can go along with the next fellow in any argument in favor of turning the truth loose, and so I see no reason why anybody who wants to shouldn’t read Honest to God; but I am constantly amazed at the people who read that book who haven’t touched another book on religion in the last twenty years. It is as if I should get into an argument about the wave theory as against the corpuscular theory of light without ever having read a book on physics, and that I should then argue one phase as against another just as if I knew what I were talking about. Here is a writer who moves around easily among some of the most esoteric scholars of our day, and people who don’t know a chancel from infralapsarianism are ready to discuss the contributions of Honest to God to modern religion.
I have been wondering what the book will do to church architecture, because good church architecture is supposed to follow good theology. Since God is not up there, we can remove the pointing finger of the steeple. Maybe the church of the future will have us sitting around a pit looking into the ground of being and singing, “Go down, Moses.”
Most of us never had any real trouble with transcendent and immanent, nor with the God up there versus the God down here; but there you are. “He that sitteth in the heavens (wherever they are) shall laugh” (if you will pardon the anthropomorphism).
EUTYCHUS II
SHRINK FROM A SLPENDID HEIGHT
Thank you for Howard Carson Blake’s “ ‘The New Morality’ ” (Mar. 27 issue). He says what I would like to say and see proclaimed repeatedly until it overwhelms the “Big Lie” which has been, is being, and will no doubt be propagated by those who have seized upon Darwin, Freud, and any other pretext to excuse their unwillingness to deny themselves and take up a cross; in so doing, they have, as the Apostle Paul told the Romans, begun to “think up silly ideas of what God is like and what he wanted them to do” (Rom. 2:21, Living Letters).
Without being a “calamity howler” and recognizing that it is sometimes difficult to see the trees for the woods and vice versa, anyone who has made a study of the rise and fall of civilizations over the centuries should be able to see that this drive to put immorality into a respectable position is typical when a social order, having reached a splendid height, shrinks from the responsibility this entails, and, refusing to accept the challenge, degenerates into effete sentimentalism.…
HARRY L. DODGE
Canton, Ohio
As illuminating as many of his comments are, … Blake has failed utterly to discern what Bishop Robinson means by [“the new morality”] in his chapter in Honest to God. Most assuredly it is not the idea that “everything goes,” including fornication and homosexuality, or that everything is relative and nothing is wrong per se. Mr. Blake has won a pitiful triumph over a caricature.
Bishop Robinson points out that the Christian ethic is exemplary rather than legislative; it is not to be taken “either as literal injunctions for any situation or as universal principles for every situation” (Honest to God, p. 111). To do this would ultimately make Christ’s ethic as set forth in the Sermon on the Mount a second rigorous law taking the place of the old law which Christ, by coming to fulfill, set aside. “You cannot define in advance situations in which [love] can be satisfied with less than complete and unreserved self-giving.… Jesus … is content with the knowledge that if we have the heart of the matter in us, if our eye is single, then love will find the way, its own particular way in every individual situation” (p. 112). The so-called new morality attempts to show that what really counts in Christian ethics is love—love for God and the love for my brother whom God has given me—and that once this basic orientation is established, it is not necessary to be legalistically consistent or repetitive in all that I do. Rather, I will be called upon to act in different ways in different situations because love of Christ and of my neighbor precludes my insisting rigorously upon the same exact patterns and procedures for every given situation. Rightly understood, this position never says that “everything is relative” or “anything goes”.…
EDWARD A. JOHNSON
St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran
Hay Springs, Neb.
I was struck by his paragraph questioning the motives of Westminster Press in publishing an American edition of Robinson’s book.…
The question is not, “How much money we make?”—though financial solvency surely is an issue for any publishing house, sacred or secular. The true question, however, is, “Is the purpose of the Church to indoctrinate or to engage in honest and open search for truth?” …
LEROY C. HODAPP
First Methodist
Bloomington, Ind.
There is, and should be, much disagreement with Bishop Robinson’s thesis, but somehow I find his understanding of God’s Word and God’s world more spiritually penetrating and true than Mr. Blake’s article.…
I find it very comforting to remember God is still on his throne and not nearly so inclined to be upset by heresy as we are. He must roar with laughter over our pettiness. It seems to be part of the depravity of man to take himself too seriously.
B. G. MUNRO
First Presbyterian Church
Thomasville, Ga.
It is high time someone had the courage and skill to nail down and label for what it is the sort of demonic claptrap which has been plaguing the religious press for these many years.
There is, of course, as Pastor Blake points out, no new thing in Robinson’s rehash of some very old and very fruitless attempts to lower Christian standards and discredit the Word of God.
CHARLES MENOUGH
Nova Methodist
Nova, Ohio
They speak of their intellectual honesty, thus explaining their non-biblical ideas, but if they are really honest, let them admit in simple, easy to understand language that they do not believe in New Testament Christianity, the Old or New Testament God, or in Christ; let them abandon the pulpit and find a convenient soap box from which to propound their “wonderful” philosophies. I for one will still disagree with them, but at least I’ll be able to have a little more respect for them than I do at present.
W. W. COSTICK
The Evangelical United Brethren Church
Wellsville, Pa.
TRAGIC DRAMA
Dr. James Daane’s article, “The Anatomy of Anti-Semitism” (Mar. 13 issue), is not only excellently written, but may be considered as an important “stitch in time.” I think that it should be published far and wide in the hope that it may avert some serious crisis in Jewish-Christian relationships.…
Instead of condemning the New Testament as an anti-Semitic book, Jewish leaders would do better if they would carefully study the New Testament and show to all concerned that anti-Semitism is incompatible with the spirit of the New Testament.
And there are ample evidences in the New Testament that the Jewish people are still God’s people, that he still loves them, that he has still a glorious future for them, and that a Christian who loves Christ must likewise love and respect them.…
I wish herewith to point out at least one untruth which is generally held as a truth, … that the Jews had no authority at that time to put a man to death; only the Roman procurator had that authority.
According to Josephus, Philo, and certain other Roman writers, the Jews had full authority to execute people whom they had found guilty of a capital sin or crime.
They had executed James, Stephen, for example, without delivering them first to the Romans. We find in the Mishnah (Talmud) examples of execution by Jewish courts of law. In the case of Jesus, the rulers were afraid of the people who would avenge the death of their beloved Master, so they shoved responsibility on the Romans whom the Jews would not dare to attack. Pilate told the accusers to take Him and do with him according to their law (the Jewish law), and instead of blasphemy for which they themselves could condemn him, they now charged him with sedition against the Roman rule—a charge which belonged more to Roman jurisdiction. We may imagine that Pilate did not believe them. But the life of a man, especially of a Jew, did not bother the conscience of that cruel ruler.
Who is more to blame, Caiaphas or Pilate? Jesus said that those who delivered him to Pilate were more culpable.
But what does it matter now? All the participants in that tragic drama are now dust. Only Jesus arose to life again, and it is he that matters.
JACOB GARTENHAUS
President
International Board of Jewish Missions, Inc.
Atlanta, Ga.
For the most Part I was in agreement with the article. However, I feel that Mr. Daane completely fails to understand the Jewish mind on this matter. His statement: “A Jewish denial of history is, as any denial of history, in the long run futile. There is no justification for a denial of the recorded history of Christ’s death, for the authenticity of the records is not doubted by responsible scholarship,” is at this point arguing in a circle, and his misunderstanding of the Jewish position is typical of that shown by Gentiles in the past. He accepts the Jewish involvement in the death of Christ as historically true because it is recorded in the Gospels. He would make it seem that the Jewish people and the Anti-Defamation League in particular are turning their backs on what they know to be true for the purpose of taking a convenient position. I should like to point out that most Jewish leaders believe the New Testament books to be spurious propaganda documents for the purpose of proving the Messiahship of Christ. It is true that many historians after the time of Christ attest to those details surrounding the death of our Saviour, but they were committed to the position that the New Testament was true.… If all Jewish people accepted the historical accuracy of the New Testament, … they would be Christians, and the problem of the death of Christ would not bother them so much.…
MARTIN MEYER ROSEN
Minister in Charge
Los Angeles Dist. Hdqrs.
American Board of Missions to the Jews
Hollywood, Calif.
Please allow me to comment on Mr. Daane’s violent anti-Semitic article.…
His “facts” derived from the New Testament are unfortunately only theological dogma and doctrine, not history. There are grave and serious discrepancies in the four Gospels—discrepancies, contradictions, and omissions which Christian scholars have long known, and even concerning the Crucifixion. The trial of Jesus as described in the Gospels is pure fiction.…
No reputable historian regards the four Gospels as history. In the New Testament, legend and myth are intermingled with fact, and theology not history is decisive.…
The Jewish role in the Crucifixion was precisely nil. Jesus was only one of many Jews Pilate crucified for sedition and rebellion against Rome. If the religious leaders cooperated as he claimed they did, they did so purely out of fear. What is most important to remember, however, is the trial as portrayed in the New Testament violates every single provision of Jewish legal procedure.
In placing responsibility on the Jews for the Crucifixion, the New Testament authors not only display malice, but a desire to conciliate, and to curry favor with, Rome. To blame Rome for murdering Jesus would have had disastrous consequences. To accuse the Jews, hated and despised by Rome, was safe and advantageous.
Is not the issue of responsibility irrelevant and blasphemous? His theology holds that God wanted to redeem mankind from sin, and that to achieve this redemption, he ordained that his only Son should be crucified as an atonement. Why a loving God and father should demand such a bloody and cruel sacrifice of his only child, remains to me incomprehensible. If his theology however is valid, then God and he alone is the murderer of Jesus. Since God ordained his death, and demanded that his blood be shed as an atonement, is he not the ultimate murderer?
If his theology is valid, should not he and the Christian world be grateful to the Romans and to the Jews for having collaborated with the Deity in executing his divine plan for the race?…
That the ultimate responsibility for the death of Jesus rests upon God who decreed his death when he created the world, is incontrovertible. Blaming the Jews is merely perpetuating anti-Semitism.
THEODORE N. LEWIS
Progressive Synagogue
Brooklyn, N. Y.
[It] is great and says what needs to be said with a loud voice in these days of weak compromise.
A. GORDON MACLENNAN
Westmount South, Nova Scotia
As for guilt over the Crucifixion itself, we cannot blame all Jews even of that generation, for at most just a few thousand people were in that mob scene. The issue is not whether the Jews can dismiss Judas any more than whether the Christians can dismiss Benedict Arnold. “Consciousness of unity” does not mean responsibility for every wrong doer, in every generation, ever vaguely affiliated with the group involved.
HOWARD N. COOPER
New York, N. Y.
Being a Hebrew-Christian myself, having worked in Jewish missions for years, and now in a pastorate I read your article with considerable interest.…
My own observations substantiate the finding of the survey that more fundamentalist church members blame Jews for crucifying Jesus. I noticed that in this context Matthew 27:24, 25 is quoted, not taking into account that this mob had no authority to speak for the Hebrew people; just as a mob worked up by the police of some country to throw stones at a U. S. embassy is no indication of the feeling of the people themselves.…
MAX DORIANI
Christian Church of Big Run and Gipsy
Big Run, Pa.
Just a note of appreciation for your article on anti-Semitism.…
G. W. BROMILEY
Prof. of Church History
Fuller Seminary
Pasadena, Calif.
Christians, and I speak as one of them, have been guilty of every conceivable atrocity.… Christians have loved and love; Christians have hated and hate. Is it proper to say that “the” Christians hate? Of course not!…
Some Gentiles had the power of capital punishment and executed Jesus. Are “the” Gentiles to be damned forever? Some Christians of the past introduced slavery into the Western world. Are “the” Christians to be damned forever? Let us declare a moratorium on the use of the definite article in reference to religious and ethnic groups. For God’s sake, let all this talk about “the” Jews and “the” Negroes and “the” whites, and “the” anything else stop!
LEE A. BELFORD
Chairman, Dept. of Religious Education
New York University
New York, N. Y.
Your discussion … concerning Jewish responsibility for the death of Christ was out of the top drawer, and I certainly appreciated it tremendously. I was glad to see that The New York Times gave it some publicity also.
PAUL WOOLLEY
Prof. of Church History
Westminster Seminary
Philadelphia, Pa.
ODESSA AND MOSCOW
I … like to acknowledge, with appreciation, a good treatment of a matter especially when in various quarters misunderstanding about it has developed. I consider your report on the Odessa-Moscow consideration of religious liberty (News, Mar. 27 issue) objective and helpful and want to thank you for it.
O. FREDERICK NOLDE
Director
Commission of the Churches on International Affairs
The World Council of Churches
New York, N. Y.
CROSS … OUT
Re: March 27 issue News item, “Pulpit Meditations on ‘Fanny Hill.’ ” At the risk of adding to Mr. Glenesk’s popularity or notoriety, I must comment. Any church that will put up with that kind of “service” deserves just what they have. If the church and minister could agree on crossing out all but the first name of their church name, it would be most fitting.
T. R. SISK, JR.
The Highlawn Baptist Church
Huntington, W. Va.
• Named after its first paster, The Rev. Ichahod S. Spencer, the church is officially called Spencer Memorial Presbyterian Church.—ED.
THAT FEDERAL AID QUESTION
Congratulations on your articles on “Federal Aid to Christian Education: Yes and No” (Feb. 28 issue). The thesis was so worded that two entirely different subjects were included: governmental aid to Christian schools and federal (as opposed to state or municipal) aid. De Koster directed himself largely (but by no means exclusively) to the first question, whereas Edman dealt with the second but not the first one. In my estimation the discussion could be made more pointed, clear, and profitable if the pros and cons on each of these theses could be presented in separate symposia.
EDWIN H. PALMER
Westminster Theological Seminary
Philadelphia, Pa.
Let me congratulate you on the very excellent issue on February 28—especially the article by Dr. Raymond Edman on “Federal Aid to Christian Education: No,” and the article by David McKenna on “Evangelical Colleges: The Race for Relevance.” I thought so much of these two articles that I am sharing a copy with each of our faculty and board here.…
M. NORVEL YOUNG
President
Pepperdine College
Los Angeles, Calif.
Professor De Koster certainly presented the most convincing case “for” federal aid that I have ever read. He did it by calling attention to the many ways in which we are already receiving such monies.
Dr. Edman rode the same horse that has already been ridden to death. I feel that there are many better reasons for “not” accepting federal aid. However, let any who are opposed admit the inconsistency of philosophy and practice.
I am “against” federal aid to religious institutions when the cause of one denomination is given better advantage. The students who populate our nation’s colleges, whether state or religious, are citizens of the United States. Any aid they receive should not be interpreted as federal aid to a religious institution.
JIM LOFTON
Parkdale Baptist Church
Harlingen, Tex.
BOTH HAVE CHANGED
I must confess that Professor Hope’s article (Feb. 28 issue) on Roman Catholic-Protestant relations was totally inadequate and displayed much confusion and ingenuousness on his part in regard to the actual situation.…
I am convinced that an accurate historical investigation will show very clearly that the chief reason for the “change in relations” between “Protestants and Catholics” in these days is that since the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation there have been deep and fundamental changes in the actual beliefs of both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Due to the influence of rationalism and [Hegelian] thought on Protestant theology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it is no longer possible to state honestly that “Protestants in general” still believe in the biblical concept of Christianity that was reaffirmed and rediscovered by the Reformers.…
Likewise it can be shown that the same rationalistic and relativistic thought has now penetrated and conquered a good part of the Roman Catholic Church in the twentieth century. For instance the theological position held by the “modernists” during the struggles in the Roman Catholic Church from 1893–1907 and which then was condemned by Pius X and the Pontifical Biblical Commission is now fully accepted by the Roman church and her leading theologians.…
W. HURVEY WOODSON
Milan, Italy
THE PROTESTANT DOLLAR
Reference is made to a letter.… over the signature of Chaplain Cary J. Rote of Letchworth Village (Feb. 28 issue) in which he complains that during the past six years he has not received a single dollar from Protestant churches for the retarded children under his care at the village.
I have been at the Wassaic State School for retarded children since March 28, 1957. In that time I have received in excess of $25,000 in gifts from Protestant churches including Mr. Rote’s.
The past Christmas Protestant churches from almost every state in the union gave our children more than 2,000 crosses valued at more than $1,000 and a vast amount of New Testaments, books, games, toys, and all kinds of religious books and papers.…
PAUL R. ASHBY
Chaplain
Wassaic State School
Wassaic, N. Y.
BOTH PLUMBERS AND PROFESSORS
Especially did I like Harold B. Kuhn’s protest against Toynbee’s brand of theology (Feb. 28 issue).
However, I must chide Mr. Kuhn for his theological snobbery and his resentment of “the hidden assumption that an author’s proficiency in one specialized area qualifies him to speak in other fields.”
Conversely, Toynbee might resent Kuhn’s trying to be an author.…
As a professional journalist, with a B. J. degree and a quarter of a century in the field, I have yet to meet anyone—from plumber to professor—who did not think he could spring fully clad as a writer out of the head of some Jupiter. And some have.…
So, disassemble Toynbee’s theology all you will—and more power to you—but, please, let us not erect professional walls between God and man. There are enough walls in the world as it is.
MIDGE SHERWOOD
San Marino, Calif.
REPUDIATION DENIED
On page 21 of your February 28 issue, under the heading “Woe” (Eutychus), there appeared a statement which we wish to contradict.
The Sanctuary Awakening Fellowship has never in any way repudiated the Brinsmead Brothers or the message they are presenting to the SDA Church. There is a continued and friendly correspondence maintained.
Actually, however, since the SAF is a completely nebulous group with no organization besides a mailing list and the SAF Newsletter, or any individual or group which can repudiate or affirm support of any individual or group, it would seem obvious that E. A. Crane is completely misinformed as to the situation which exists in our denomination today.…
GEORGE HARVEY RUE
Editor
SAF Newsletter
Summit, Calif.
TOO BUSY TO TELL
Was it your planning or divine guidance that placed the testimony (God’s Sword Thrusts) regarding Nehemiah 6:3 (“I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down”) right after Dr. McKenna’s sharp article on the question, “Are small Christian colleges obsolete?” (Feb. 28 issue).
While I rejoiced over the writer’s fighting spirit, there kept nagging me a sense of omission. Even more logically than the Christian liberal arts college, the Bible college stands in the gap against the floodtide of secularized mass training. We know that, humanly speaking, we are in a hopeless minority; we know that the remedy we have for the deepest needs of our time is laughed at; we know we cannot “keep up with the Joneses”; but we give our students more than a smattering of biblical foundation, well-taught, and enough to stand its ground in graduate school, in professional life, in an embattled ministry that reaches to the uttermost parts of the earth.
Are we obsolete? Can we survive? Too busy to answer!
RENE FRANK
Chairman, Dept. of Music and Fine Arts
Ft. Wayne Bible College
Ft. Wayne, Ind.
In the biographical note on David L. McKenna, you printed that he holds the B.D. degree from Asbury College. I call to your attention that Asbury College is a liberal arts institution, not officially related to any denomination of the church, awarding only the A.B. degree.
If Dr. McKenna has a B.D. degree from Asbury, it is surely from the Asbury Theological Seminary which is in no way officially connected with Asbury College even though it is located across the street from the college campus. The facts are that many persons are alumni of both institutions; similar theological points of view are stressed in both institutions; but each institution has its own board of trustees and is financially independent.…
ELDON R. SMITH JR.
Chaplain, Captain, NSAF
Bunker Hill AFB, Ind.
• Chaplain Smith is correct; Dr. McKenna’s B.D. is indeed from Asbury Theological Seminary—ED.
C. S. LEWIS AND ORTHODOXY
It was with a great deal of distress that I read the letters anent C. S. Lewis (Feb. 28 issue), particularly those commenting on Martin Lloyd-Jones’s report that Lewis “was an opponent of the substitutionary and penal theory of the Atonement” (Dec. 20 issue). It is apparent from one or two of the letters that this report has upset some Christians and caused doubt in their minds. If this should dissuade some Christians from using and recommending Lewis’s writings, it would be a tragedy of the first order, because in his writings Lewis definitely taught this central and essential doctrine of the Christian faith. Evidence for this statement may be found in the following places. The clearest evidence is in the first of the Narnia Chronicles, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Edmund, having passed through the Wardrobe, finds himself in Narnia and is befriended by the White Witch, who holds all Narnia in a spell of perpetual winter. Edmund chooses to go over to the side of the White Witch, and oppose himself not to his own brothers and sisters, but also to the inhabitants of Narnia, and of course to Aslan the Lion himself. The White Witch then publicly claims the life of Edmund because he has become a traitor to Aslan. Aslan acknowledges the validity of her claim upon Edmund’s life, but he himself allows himself to be slain in Edmund’s place so that Edmund may live. The White Witch’s power is broken and Edmund is restored to fellowship with Aslan and the others when Aslan comes to life again after having been slain as a penal substitute for Edmund. Again, in The Great Divorce, when the big, blustery Ghost complains, “I only want my rights. I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding charity!” the Spirit replies, “Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought.” Finally, in the Space Trilogy, the hero of all three books is Dr. Elwin Ransom, and it is made perfectly clear in the second book, Perelandra, that the choice of the word Ransom is by design and intended to signify that men cannot be redeemed except by a ransom; and although Dr. Ransom does not actually die in the book, he descends to the very depths of the planet in a life-and-death struggle with the villain, and finally emerges above the ground having destroyed the Evil One, but bearing until his last day alive a wound in his heel received in the conflict. In the first book, Out of the Silent Planet, the idea of Atonement is clearly suggested by the remark of the Oyarsa of Mars, “We think that Maleldil [God] would not give it [the earth] up utterly to the Bent One, and there are stories among us that He has taken strange council and dared terrible things, wrestling with the Bent One in Thulcandra [the earth].”
These are the most outstanding incidents. Those who read all seven of the Narnia books will discover a whole world of biblical theology on a child’s level, stretching from Creation through Redemption to the Anti-Christ and the Second Coming and Last Battle, with all the main departments of biblical theology set forth in between. Perhaps Lewis personally did not distinguish as carefully as he ought to have the Satisfaction view of Atonement from various man-made theories which have weakened the doctrine through the years, but in his writings he certainly does “preach Christ, and him crucified.”
WILLIAM J. RANKIN
Mediator Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Philadelphia, Pa.
Congratulations.…
Perhaps those who complained about a conservative evangelical paper including these tributes, because Professor Lewis did not accept all the doctrines they themselves accept, would do well to remember that the basic “evangelical” doctrine is that we are saved by grace alone, and not by subscribing to a series of doctrinal statements, however sound they may be.
J. HAMILTON-BROWN
Nottingham, England
At present I do not think that anyone has mentioned his [Lewis’s] contempt of evolution and his love for the truth of our Lord’s return. Ten years ago there appeared an article by him in an English magazine stressing these points, entitled “Let’s Face the Difficulties.” The main problem, according to Lewis, was that Christ although divine did not know the time of his return. I wrote to Lewis telling him of a businessman who refused to be intrusted with a great secret because his wife was not allowed to be “in” on it. I thought that Christ could refuse to know something of which we, his Bride and Body, were to know nothing. Dr. Lewis replied with a very gracious letter, written in his terrible crabbed handwriting, thanking me for my “fruitful idea”—among other things. If a man loves the Second Coming of our Lord I feel that he is a Christian brother, even if he smokes and likes a glass of ale.… After all, did not Spurgeon and Campbell Morgan relish their pipes?
O. T. BRYANT
Fillmore, Calif.
Smoking pipe or cigar, and drinking beer or wine may disqualify American Christians from the evangelical camp, but on the continent of Europe amongst the strictest evangelicals smoking and drinking (beer or wine) is not considered a theological weakness.
TH. SNITSELAAR
Haut-Rhin, France
The recent attacks made upon some of the late C. S. Lewis’s beliefs ought to be answered lest the eminent reputation and influence of this noble man of God be damaged and so injure the Body of Christ (Acts 9:1, 5; 1 Cor. 12:12–26).…
The only charge against any of his beliefs that could fall into the category of “saving truths” (belief necessary to salvation) is the one regarding the substitutionary atonement. Let his words speak for him (Mere Christianity, Chapter 4): “The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter.… We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is our formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories as to how Christ’s death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary.…” Mr. Lewis believed that Christ, God in the flesh, “paid the penalty” … “the bill” (compare Rom. 6:23a) of our sins, and was not persuaded that “God wanted to punish men.” Certainly it was rebellious, “fallen” men that God so loved, while at the same time abhorring their sins, which required his expiating.
I think that sometimes in his enormously successful attempts to express himself in clear, modern language, he has … so simplified theology as to startle the superficial reader and the one who is unfamiliar with any but the King James Version of the Bible.…
MRS. TOM DODSON
Fairfax, Va.
CORRECTION
In the letter by Otha B. Holcomb (Feb. 28 issue) he states the cantata “The Greatest Story Yet Untold” as one of John W. Peterson’s. However, the correct composer and arranger of the great missionary cantata is Eugene L. Clark of Back to the Bible Broadcast, Lincoln, Nebraska.…
E. ROBERTS
Chicago, Ill.
THE HOLLYWOOD CHRISTIAN GROUP
I wonder who told you (News, Feb. 14 issue) that Mesdames Jane Russell, Connie Haines, and Beryl Davis are “active in the Hollywood Christian Group.”
It was my privilege to be a co-founder with the late Dr. Henrietta Mears of this group in 1949. My recollection is that the ladies mentioned were active in the group during its first couple of years, but that they became inactive more than ten years ago. The group majority found itself in official disapproval of a strange mixture of spirituality and carnality in a minority, which later arranged unofficial, occasional, and private meetings dubbed by some “the Hollywood Christian Group.” No one resigned or was expelled, and none of the majority wished to take legal action to protect its name.
I myself am no longer “active” in the group, but attend occasionally as a visitor or speaker. The Hollywood Christian Group draws a hundred or more weekly in a well-known hotel in Hollywood with invitations restricted to card-carrying members of the entertainment guilds. To my knowledge, the three mentioned have attended less than once annually in the past ten years. They are heartily welcome, for even those who deplore a “public image” can hold its owner in affection and regard for … zeal.
The Hollywood Christian Group is not a church. It has strict rules for its active membership, including avoiding any appearance of evil regarding liquor and sex. It endeavors to avoid publicity, but now and then gets a black eye through the reporting of the activities of those who once attended. Too readily forgotten are the choice converts of the group’s evangelism, some in prominent places in Christian ministry.
J. EDWIN ORR
Chaplain at Large
Mission to the Academic Community
Los Angeles, Calif.
NO INSULT INTENDED
I cannot refrain from writing to protest your editorial on “A House Divided” (Feb. 14 issue). It is a gratuitous insult to a part of the Church, the Church in the Province of South Africa, which is one of the glories of the Anglican communion in a day when it is not everywhere glorious. It is furthermore an entirely unwarranted and offensive slur on one of the Church’s greatest and most courageous prelates in modern times, the Most Rev. Joost de Blank, archbishop of Cape Town and Metropolitan of the Church in South Africa.
ROBERT V. LANCASTER
Trinity Church
Lancaster, N. Y.
I must protest that you have gotten the facts all wrong as to the difficulties of Anglicanism in South Africa; your history is not factual. Granting that the Province of South Africa is predominantly Anglican Catholic (which tolerance should tell us is nothing wrong), the fact remains that it is the only recognized Anglican body there. The bishops of the CESA body are not in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has said so, nor are they in communion with any other Anglican church. They do not, e.g., send bishops to Lambeth, and inclusion in this council of the Anglican communion is the final test of orthodoxy.…
Finally, elsewhere you suggest that the wearing of the eucharistic vestments is illegal in the Church of England. You are saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury is then acting lawlessly. In this case as well as that of the Colenso affair you are basing your opinions on the almost 100-year-old rulings of the Privy Council of the British government, which the Church of England has ignored and by which the rest of the Anglican communion is in no way bound or even affected. Such petty legalism is the letter that killeth.
ROBERTS E. EHRGOTT
The Church of the Nativity
Indianapolis, Ind.
DIVINITY AT CHICAGO
In writing of her “Pilgrimage from Liberalism to Orthodoxy” (Dec. 6 issue) Rachel H. King asserts that the Divinity School of the University of Chicago had successfully undermined her faith and that she had never hated anything with [more] permanent passion than her Chicago experience.
After reading such an article the Christian public is left with the impression that the Divinity School must be the headquarters of infidelity.…
I am about to receive my B.D. degree from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, and I have not lost my faith by attending this intellectual center, but rather have had my faith increased. The student is made aware of the theological problems and the viewpoint of the great theologians of the past and present, but there is no attempt to force a particular theological position.
The orthodox positions of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin are given adequate and fair treatment. I appreciate my heritage from these great men because of the Divinity School. When the orthodox position is presented, the plan of salvation is taught much clearer than is being taught in many so-called evangelical churches. Instead of hating my Chicago experience as Rachel King did, I have enjoyed my experience and thank God for it.
I believe I have a right to speak about experience with some authority having graduated from the pastor’s course of the Moody Bible Institute in 1939 and having been in the pastorate ever since. I have taught Bible courses at the Milwaukee Bible College (now Grace at Grand Rapids) for over twelve years. I have been made more aware of the theological problems of the past and of the present at Chicago, but I still am as Calvinistic and orthodox as [I] was when I entered Chicago.
I have appreciated my experience at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago so much, that I recommend that more mature orthodox men attend this great school.
DONALD C. ELIFSON
Norwood Bible Church
Chicago, Ill.
• Quite apart from considerations of the present situation at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Rachel King’s article told of her experience at that institution nearly forty years ago.—ED.
