Dear Subjects Of The Kingdom:
The religious carousel continues to whirl and so does Homer A. Tomlinson: King of the World, Bishop of the Church of God (Queens Village, N. Y.), and National Chairman of the Theocratic Party.
You may recall that at 3 P.M. on October 7, 1966, King Homer assumed the Throne of David in Jerusalem. He there proclaimed, “We’ve reached the land of corn and wine.” (Corn, si! Vino, no!) Then, returning home, he began to enroll loyal subjects for $2 a month in his 1967 Campaign for Righteousness.
The approaching 1968 election, however, has made King/ Bishop/ Chairman Homer turn his attention to the Theocratic Party, which he founded in Fulton, Missouri, in 1960. Recently his reverend majesty proposed that the U. S. capital be moved to Fulton and the U. N. capital to Ecclesia, his 330-square-mile domain near Jerusalem. But choosing the party presidential candidate was a problem. Although he had been his party’s candidate in ’60 and ’64, Homer realized that as reigning King of the World he could hardly condescend to run for the Presidency. So Bishop William R. Rogers, his olive-branch-carrying emissary to Viet Nam, was tapped as the party’s ’68 nominee.
Bishop Rogers has vowed to hit the campaign trail with “Joshua-Jericho Exploits.” He will walk seven times around every county courthouse in the fifty states expecting to see “walls of unrighteousness” fall. If the bishop covers all 3,130 counties, he will have done 21,910 laps. Such a vigorous candidate will certainly deserve consideration both at the polls and at Dr. Scholl’s.
But the candidacy of Rogers poses unprecedented questions for the American electorate. If elected, will not Rogers as President pay homage to Homer the King? Will not Theocratic Party plans spell doom for Washington as the citadel of democracy? Will not our national sovereignty be lost in the international shuffle at the court of Ecclesia, King Homer’s Camelot?
In short, can we afford the luxury of Homer’s Kingdom of Righteousness? That, Mr. and Mrs. America, is the theo-political question we must answer.
Theocratically, EUTYCHUS III
Christian University: Pro And Con
“The Need for a Christian University” (Feb. 17) was the cry of a prophet in the wilderness of higher education today. I find myself in complete agreement.… The greatest need for a Christian university is to provide Christian teachers for our little Christian colleges. Without a Christian university, where do we find men with excellent preparation, men with doctoral preparation, to staff our church colleges?
You are pleading for a great cause. I am not certain that a Christian university can be created today. With taxation in our land sheer confiscation of property, I doubt that the money can be raised. But a Christian university is the greatest need of American higher education. So keep crying, even if you are crying in the wilderness. And there are some of us who do stand ready to help beat the bushes to find the dollars that will implement your vision. But do not settle for less than an excellent university.
J. STANLEY HARKER
President
Grove City College
Grove City, Pa.
The best option we have is with Christian faculty who are willing to evangelize within the context of the secular university. It has been my experience that it often takes only a few outspoken faculty to influence the course a university will adopt. Unfortunately, the Christian professor has been strangely silent. I make two requests: First, pray for faculty members on secular campuses instead of condemning them. Second, eliminate the dying Christian colleges and propel Christian faculty into the main currents of our world.…
DANIEL W. GREGG
Minneapolis, Minn.
Keep plugging away for this. If we could get one university that would present the realities of life within the framework of a world view that is more than natural—one that is supernatural—this would be one of the greatest contributions to our Western civilization that we could possibly have.… I sincerely believe that peoples’ hearts are hungry for this type of education, and I know that it is very needed.
C. E. AUTREY
Director, Division of Evangelism
Home Mission Board
Southern Baptist Convention
Atlanta, Ga.
I appreciated the point about fragmentation in education in “The Need for a Christian University.” Many students find their studies unrelated to real life, and those who have changed disciplines along the line notice even more the cleavage.…
HOWARD ANDERSEN
Manchester, England
The current colloquium over a Christian university or a Christian college on a secular campus interests me very much. The idea of a national institution for advanced study in Christian thought seems reasonable to me. Dean Snyder’s plan for a Christian college is quite a different matter. Implicit in his plan is the assumption that Christians should acquire secular knowledge in a way different to that of other students. I question this assumption. The intellectual forum of the secular arts classroom is perfectly adequate for secular instruction.
ANGUS M. GUNN
Assistant Professor
The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, B. C.
As an evangelical Christian who attended both Christian schools and a state university I believe that the type of institution Snyder suggests would help students to be useful Christians as well as informed citizens.
ROBERT CLOUSE
Assistant Professor of History
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, Ind.
John Snyder’s proposal is our only hope for evangelical faith plus academic relevance. Christian students have to pay for residence anyway. Secular universities are glad to provide the plant and the specialists. At little cost we could add an evangelical perspective in every discipline and the stimulus to real excellence. My only criticism is that Snyder’s article should have read, “Why Not A Christian College on Every Major University Campus?”
ROBERT BROW
Toronto, Ont.
There can be no doubt that the “Christian stake in higher learning has come upon hard times.” This is indeed unfortunate, and we are paying a high price for the same. We trust that your committee recently appointed to investigate possibilities for the formation of an Institute for Advanced Christian Studies will meet with an encouraging response.
STUART E. MURRAY
Principal
United Baptist Bible Training School
Moncton, New Brunswick
Anti Anti-Catholic Polemic
I was surprised that an editorial like “Sinning by Defection” (Feb. 17) would appear.… To launch an anti-Catholic polemic by making Fr. Winfrid Herbst and the diocese of Rome the normative voice for Roman Catholicism is just about as fair, honest, and Christian as for a Roman Catholic to ridicule evangelical Protestantism by making snakehandlers and Carl McIntire its official spokesmen. Anyone who knows anything about Catholicism today knows that Father Herbst’s syndicated column remarks about a Catholic’s conversion to Protestantism reflect a pre-Vatican II mentality. That mentality is no longer represented by any leading thinker in Catholicism with whom I am familiar.… To use words such as “apostasy” and “excommunication” as Father Herbst does is contrary to the whole mood and vocabulary of the council documents. This fact is especially significant when it is realized that those documents themselves have been so worded as to win the approval of both “progressives” and “conservatives”.…
Can an evangelical professor at a Catholic college not expect his colleagues to leave diatribe to unbelievers and to write the kind of constructive criticism which most Catholics who read CHRISTIANITY TODAY would sincerely welcome.
LESLIE R. KEYLOCK
Assistant Professor of Theology
St. Norbert College
West De Pere, Wis.
I, too, read the item in Our Sunday Visitor and remember thinking, “I hope no Protestants read this.” I see by your editorial some did.…
However, it seems to me rather inconsistent for evangelicals who eschew the ecumenical movement to deride certain Catholics for being—although you do not use the word—un-ecumenical.
In our small New Hampshire town we have been holding infrequent ecumenical prayer services for two or three years in which we rotate meetings in each of the participating churches, which include Congregational (UCC), Methodist, Baptist (ABC), Episcopal, and Roman Catholic. This represents all the churches in town save one: a Conservative Baptist congregation. (One wonders how they expect to convert us heathen if they refuse to associate with us.) When the pastor of that church came to found his congregation he made the statement that, as far as he was concerned, there was not a single Christian church in town and that his congregation was to be the first.
If this were an isolated event I would not even mention it; but, judging from the several evangelicals I have known, this offensive and boorish holier-than-thou attitude is almost a trademark. These evangelicals that I know love to brag (they call it “witnessing”) about how many times they go to church in a week, their daily Bible reading, or their tithing. (I confess, the most annoying part about their bragging is their complete lack of interest when, in retaliation, I point out that I know many Catholics, including myself, who do the same things.)
But the most annoying trait of evangelicals—as long as I’m in a complaining mood I might as well let it all out—is their use of phrases such as “Christian”.… as though they have a copyright on the title Christian.…
We—evangelicals and Catholics—are much closer to each other, theologically, than either of us are to more liberal Christians, and in a world where, percentage-wise, Christianity is losing ground, I believe we really need each other.
JAMES K. GALLAGHER
Exeter, N. H.
Paranoidal Reaction?
Many of us find it interesting that some found [part of my] invocation (“Give a vision of breadth and depth, and of encompassing magnitude and charity, that no narrow dogmatism may obscure the glory of thy Kingdom”) to be “more a swipe at Graham than a prayer to God” (“Billy Graham Faces Berkeley Rebels,” News, Feb. 17). Is someone trying to justify “narrow dogmatism,” or is it a paranoidal reaction?
S. F. NISHI
Episcopal Ministry to the University
Berkeley, Calif.
Indigenous Campus Witness
Martin L. Singewald in “New Religious Approaches to the Campus” (Feb. 17), has forgotten the most potent force for reaching the “90 per cent of the students [who] have no contact with organized Christianity”: the other 10 per cent. Professional Christians on campus are not looking for “outside help.” The Church has failed to reach the campus precisely because it is outside. Christianity on campus would profit more from “inside” help—committed students and faculty who through an indigenous fellowship can give a corporate and sustained witness to their Lord.
WILLIAM T. MCCONNELL
Albuquerque, N. Mex.
One wonders if it isn’t Dr. Singewald who is “too little, too late.” After all, Gospel Blimp Incorporated has been around for a few years now.
Dr. Singewald’s ten suggestions generally reflect his impersonal bent. Newspaper ads, book distributions, concert series, exhibits, and so on, all have their place, but they are secondary tactics, and their success will always depend on nose to nose encounters.…
FREDERICK N. WAGNER
Portland, Ore.
It would probably help considerably if the student’s religious affiliation were indicated on his college entrance papers and a list sent by the colleges to the indicated denominations.
From there on it should be a breeze for churches in a university city to seek out their members and include in their curriculum interesting programs for college young people.…
MRS. ROBERT A. WELSH
Ashtabula, Ohio
Cover Comment
We are honored to find that the Richard Halliburton Memorial Tower, which stands on our campus, was impressive enough to be selected as the visual representation of “Christian Higher Education” (cover, Feb. 17).
KEN BERRYHILL
Director of Public Relations
Southwestern at Memphis
Memphis, Tenn.