TAKE TWO—THEY’RE SMALL
If you like one lump of sugar in your coffee, it doesn’t follow that you will like two better. Twice as much of a good thing is not necessarily an improvement. After years of careful, meticulous, and, I am sure brilliant observation, I conclude that the plainest mark of the American Way of Life is that we are constantly taking a good thing and running it into the ground. Two is always twice as good as one. That principle, I am firmly convinced, simply won’t stand up.
I am old enough to remember Tom Thumb miniature golf courses. For a while everyone responded to this novelty, and soon all kinds of people were starting miniature golf courses in all kinds of places. What was a good business for ten people could not possibly be a good one for twenty, but everybody climbed aboard the success machine and managed to ride it into a breakdown.
Last weekend I was fighting my way into Detroit from northern Michigan, and I felt like a little corpuscle crowding its way into a jammed-up artery. By the time we were on the outskirts of the motor city everyone was suffering from thrombosis. A beautiful day in the bright woods of northern Michigan became a nightmare of traffic in a city built for the automobile.
Possibly the solution to farm over-production lies in the fact that eventually we will cover half this country with concrete and have no room for raising extra crops. Maybe, as one writer for the Atlantic Monthly suggested, we will someday have the ultimate traffic jam—population explosion followed by automobile explosion and all traffic finally stopped—and we will simply pave over the top and start all over again.
The politicians begin their speeches too soon. Christmas music is started too early. Too many churches are trying to do too many different things. Just thinking about it exhausts me. No wonder it is hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom.
ONE OF THE PLAGUES
Your very excellent editorial, “Judgment of the Theologians” (Sept. 25 issue), … goes to the very heart of the matter.
One of the plagues upon the theological scene has been and is that philosophers try to be theologians. Dr. E. Y. Mullins pointed out many years ago the separate fields of natural science, religion, and philosophy. You may recall that he pointed out that each has its own method of inquiry and criterion of truth. Each has its own field of labor, and there is no conflict unless one tries to invade the field of the other. They are and must be inter-related; but when philosophy overshadows the theological aspects, theology is in for trouble.
As I view the current theological scene, so many of our American theologians have had their thinking colored by various European systems of thought that it is difficult for them to get back to “the old unshortened gospel.” But I pray that out of the current scene may come a new appreciation for biblical theology.
I enjoy reading your publication, but ever so often I feel that I must write you and thank you for some particular gem of thought.
First Baptist Church
Oklahoma City, Okla.
I thank God it is not necessary for me to revamp my sails every time some new theological wind begins to blow. I have never known of an intelligent fundamental, premillennial, pretribulationist who held to the verbal plenary inspiration of the Scriptures ever finding it necessary to change his position. Those who might ever shift from this position would move their theological structure to the quicksands.…
Dean
Thames Valley Bible College
Woodstock, Ont.
AN ANCIENT WOE
As a Lutheran, I am moved to express my thanks and appreciation for your gentle yet firm rebuke to the Lutheran World Federation (Editorial, Sept. 25 issue) for its failure and inability to speak a clear word on the cardinal doctrine of Lutheranism, the doctrine of justification by faith. I am reminded thereby that Dr. Martin Luther once said, “Where this single article remains pure, Christendom will remain pure, in beautiful harmony, without any schisms. But where it does not remain pure, it is impossible to repel any error or heretical spirit.”
The federation made the mistake which is so often made by theologians when they become crassly rationalistic. It is not necessary to rewrite the doctrine of justification to suit the temper of modern man. It is not his modernity that keeps man in our day from finding meaning and relevance in the doctrines of damnation and justification, of sin and grace, of law and Gospel. Rather, it is the inborn, ancient depravity of man that causes him to close his heart to the Gospel. It is his spiritual blindness that prevents him from seeing its relevance for him.…
Chairman, Dept. of Religion
Milwaukee Lutheran Teachers College
Milwaukee, Wis.
ANTIQUITY OF MAN
After reading the report (News, Sept. 11 issue) on the “spectrum of belief” of the American Scientific Affiliation, it would seem that there is a need of a protest movement such as is apparent in the formation of the Creation Research Society. If one puts man on the earth fifty thousand to several hundred thousand years ago, then the Adam of the Bible is not the first “man” but one who “evolved” to appear on the scene when agriculture and husbandry are found developed. Such a view is not supporting the Bible but destroying it.…
Berlin Bible Church
Narrowsburg, N. Y.
The article is not quite correct in its report of my paper. I proposed no date for the creation of man, although my paper, “The Development of Civilization in Early Mesopotamia,” centered on the development of agriculture, which is generally agreed to have occurred about ten thousand years ago. The best archaeological and geological evidence now available makes it difficult to date man’s origin so recently.
Chairman, Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
Greenville College
Greenville, Ill.
TO AVOID MISUNDERSTANDING
I want to approve the article “Biblical Faith and Sex Education” by E. Herbert Nygren (Sept. 11 issue) but to point out what seems to me a common error. The author says that the Bible uses several words all of which are translated love. He then goes on to say that one of these is the Greek word eros. If you will check the Greek dictionary of the New Testament you will see that the word eros is never used, such was the desire to avoid any misunderstanding. When a contrast is made with the word agape, then the word philia is used, along with the corresponding verb forms.
CLAYTON H. CHAPMAN
Professor of Religion
Cedar Crest College
Allentown, Pa.
OBJECT OF FEAR
The article “The Great Delusion” (A Layman and his Faith, Sept. 11 issue) has much to commend and is most excellent; however, there is a quotation of Scripture which appears to me to be misused, unless of course I am very much mistaken. The text is from Luke 12:5, and it would appear that the writer [of the article] has used the verse to imply that we should fear the devil. As I read the verse in context I understand the Lord Jesus is warning us to fear God who alone has power to cast into hell.…
Dumbartonshire, Scotland
• Reader King is right. The author caught it too … too late!—ED.
ANYTIME
I wish to express my sincere appreciation and enthusiasm for the fine contribution made to Current Religious Thought by G. C. Berkouwer (July 31 issue).
Material such as this treatment of Dr. Bavinck’s work is of tremendous significance anytime.…
The Methodist Church
Iuka, Kan.
FOR FURTHER TRIBUTES
I am completing research and writing on a biography of the late Dr. R. A. Torrey.
I have received replies from several Christian leaders to the effect that Dr. Torrey was a great influence on their lives.… The most significant quotes will be included in a section entitled “Tributes to Torrey.”
Faith Baptist Church
2331 South Ingram
Sedalia, Mo.
THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD
Ralph Bonacker (“The Church and Social Welfare,” Sept. 11 issue) took the words right out of my mouth. If man is to be lastingly helped physically and socially, his spiritual disease (sin) must be ministered to by clergymen who deeply believe in the old-fashioned Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel that works [mightily] from within.
By now it should be extremely evident that our present socialistic trend has inspired neither initiative nor morality. Changing the circumstances and environment of man does not transform his wicked heart. Only the New Birth can accomplish this.
First Baptist Church
Highgrove, Calif.
While at times we hear a weak voice about alcohol and other vital social matters, we hardly ever hear anything about the value and need of the Sabbath to the life of the Church and nation.
The United Presbyterian Church and The Methodist Church had nothing in the official reports concerning this matter, and when I wrote the Board of Social Concerns of The Methodist Church I received a very saucy letter from one of the board secretaries.…
Sometime ago Dr. E. Ben Herbster said, “Unless something happens in the next few years, in a generation the Church will be extinct.” I believe what he says.
General Secretary
The Sunday League
Newark, N. J.
I am a Negro who never clamored for civil rights, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient. Now that the bill is law, where do we go from here? With demonstrations getting out of hand in many parts of our great country, it’s evident the stringent laws of men have not the answer to the perplexing problems of our day. Yet there is cause for rejoicing that love—which is of God, for God is love—is the answer. It was he who in love spared not his Son but delivered him up for us all. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
No matter how many enforcers of the law, how much money is spent, what talk by our legislators, what good intentions, or even how many may lay down their lives for such, it’s all in vain unless the law of love reigns in the heart.…
Many make the issue skin; the real issue is sin, and it’s the cause of broken lives, homes, and (history in making) a broken nation. Only Jesus Christ, God’s beloved Son who came into the world to save sinners, and his love prevailing in the hearts of people of every race and color, will end the hatred so prevalent. It’s not so much what party, but rather what Person, for apart from him there is no hope.
Denver, Colo.
Just before [I left] for a six-week tour in Europe the July 17 issue came. In it I read with great appreciation your official statement on “The Mission of the Church,” in which the purpose of the paper is ably and clearly stated.…
Your affirmation of the Bible as “the very Word of God” and the Church “as a spiritual body” is a declaration of faith much needed. Not merely is it needed to define the purpose of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S ministry. There is such great positional confusion among many well-meaning friends of the Christian faith that it is producing a dangerous form of religious indifference in which I sense a great weariness. Far too many such have lost their enthusiasm for the cause of the Gospel of Christ. They are becoming causeless believers, not denying the faith but certainly not much concerned with its promotion.
The note you strike in your statement is one that recognizes God’s wise and merciful providence in preparing the revelation a world of sinners most surely needs. Equally important is your stress upon a right view of the Church. The biblical view of the Church today is obscured by organizational affairs, liturgical matters, priorities based on historical traditions, and the identification of the Church with the socio-political conditions of our time. May God add power and blessing to your witness.…
New York, N. Y.
NO PRESBYTERIAN BISHOPS
“… the father of the Wright Brothers, a Presbyterian minister,” in the article by J. C. Pollock (Aug. 28 issue), would appear more correct as a factual statement if it read: “Bishop Milton Wright, United Brethren Church.”
My own father, the Rev. C. H. Slusher, was ordained as a minister in the United Brethren in Christ Church, Constitution 1841, by Bishop Milton Wright.
Christ Community Church
(Evangelical United Brethren)
Gardena, Calif.
