Beyond Gnosticism To God
The other week I read a quaint little communique that the publishers of a projected multi-volume religious encyclopedia had sent out to authors and editors. “It appears to us impossible,” said the circular, “to accomplish the articles on God in the short time we have before us.” Anyone who detected eschatological overtones or pious humility in that utterance would have been brought rudely to earth when the statement continued: “Therefore, Volume III will probably end with the article Gnosticism.”
I got to mulling that over. It could suggest that too many people get bogged down in Gnosticism and never get to God at all. Following the customary trend, these encyclopedic people have got their priorities wrong: A fair number of heresies get discussed first simply because we are the slaves of an arbitrary alphabetical system. Thus in a project of this sort we get more than we want to know about such things as Arians, Bogomils, Chiliasts, Docetists, Eutychianists, and Flagellants. (Eutychus, incidentally, is included, but being a good guy he gets very short shrift.)
This reluctance to get to God might be considered characteristic of an age for which nothing is heretical. What, it might be asked, would the WCC’s Faith and Order Department consider to be heresy today? When did one of the WCC’s American member churches last decide something on solidly biblical and theological grounds?
Some time ago I cut out from a religious journal some remarks attributed to Dr. Eugene Carson Blake at a COCU discussion in Chicago. “I am trying to keep theology out of this,” he reportedly said. “I am not going to take time to use Scriptures to base this, because time is running out.… We are not interested in what the Nicean Fathers said, but in the positive aspect of the Creed.”
I don’t profess to understand what that last sentence means, just as I do not know for whom Dr. Blake was speaking when he referred to “we.” But he was right in one thing, however inadvertently. Time is running out (did you notice that the encyclopedia’s publisher expressed a similar thought?). The early Christian creeds were formulated in the face of Gnostic teachings. The wheel has now gone full circle; modern and ever more arrogant variations of Gnosticism are with us again. It is time to get on from Gnosticism to God, to bring theology back into Christian deliberation, to use Scripture as the basis simply because time is running out.
Ministerial Marriages
I want to congratulate you on the June 20 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.… It is one of the finest I have read of your excellent conservative magazine. Especially good was the lead article entitled “The Minister and His Wife” by Ralph M. Smucker. Materials like this would make a valuable contribution to theological seminaries in the practical theology or counseling classes. Bible conferences should find an article like this very helpful in ministers and ministers’ wives discussion groups. Never have I read so much fine thought compressed into so brief an article. Let us hear more from Mr. Smucker.
Pageland Presbyterian Church
Pageland, S. C.
I am curious about the size and selection of the sample used by Ralph M. Smucker in his analysis of the minister and his wife. The single profile of the wife who may be housebound, insecure, suspicious, unhappy, frustrated, demanding, intellectually inferior to her spouse, and unsure of her theological, oratorical, and social abilities could scarcely emerge from a random sample. (See Wallace Denton, The Role of the Minister’s Wife, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962).
Had the article been entitled “Some Possible Problems of the Minister and His Wife” and had the discussion contained a qualifying paragraph, then I would not have wondered why Mr. Smucker never described some of my best friends.
MRS. CAROLYN KEEFE
Acting Chairman,
Department of Speech
Rutgers, The State University
Camden, N. J.
Christ In Community
All of your articles of this issue (June 20) are interesting.… It is good to have a fresh viewpoint and challenge from Asian young leaders as Chua Wee Hian. He has said what many a Chinese youth would say.
The article by Joseph A. Hill, “The Presence of Christ: A Contemporary View,” is a brilliant critique of Ritschl’s Christology.… However, after all that analysis and comparison with other radical theologians, one would have liked to hear what he, as an evangelical or Reformed theologian, has to say.… Virtually he said it only in two sentences: “Reformed theology, following Calvin’s lead, speaks of a spiritual presence of Christ mediated by the Spirit, who bears witness to Christ through the Word and Sacraments” in the introduction, and “… for he [Christ] is present not in spirit … but in the Spirit, who presents Christ to us in Word and deed,” as the concluding sentence.… That is not enough!… What about the presence of Christ in the believers through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? The presence of Christ felt in the community of believers in fellowship? Ritschl is right in his critique that the Western Church, even today, has been concerned too much with the historical Jesus and the “historically risen Christ,” as fundamentals of “historic Christianity,” instead of focusing attention on the present living Christ and his relation to the Church.… It is time that we, the evangelicals and the Reformed, seek to close the temporal Christological gap.
Philadelphia, Pa.
How To Handle Temptation
When I read your June 20 editorial on temptation, I was reminded of an incident recently when my wife asked a junior class, “How do we handle temptation?”
One little junior boy with an intuitively wry sense of humor replied, “very carefully.”
Station Manager
Radio Station WDAC
Lancaster, Pa.
Wifely Obedience
“Love, Honor, and Obey” (June 6) by Andre S. Bustanoby was excellent.…
To the non-Christian community, submission is a hateful thing equated with weakness or fear and is, therefore, thought to be degrading.… Far too many Christian men and women allow this type of thinking to permeate their relations in marriage. And yet, for men and women who are Christians to submit one to another where Scripture has decreed it, agreeing together that the man is the head in all things, because of the love of Christ in them, is indeed the dearest earthly gift two people can possess.…
To any who may think this type of relationship a sort of foolish dream I would testify that it is indeed practicable, as I have been joyfully married to a Christian for eighteen years and know that it works.
Birmingham, Ala.
This belongs in something called “Christianity Yesterday” … St. Paul … exhorts “women in the church to learn in all silence with subjection.” Why? Because man was created first. This is hardly an answer. One is tempted to think perhaps Adam was a disappointment, so God tried again. This is every bit as creditable as blaming women for inventing sin, as the article implies.…
But most astounding of all is the question whether a woman will “insist on maintaining a separate independent identity by remaining single, or … find her fulfillment … by becoming one flesh with a man.…” It is not an either/or question.… The man has presumably found something in the woman’s identity which caused him to love her; otherwise, any obedient female would be suitable for him. Why, then, would he want his wife to lose this attraction?… A man secure and mature will not fear a wife who is a partner; he might even enjoy the stimulation of her real companionship. If there is no love and honor … blind obedience won’t help.
MRS. E. ALBRECHT
Chesley, Ont.
It was interesting to contrast two articles in the June 6 issue: Andre S. Bustanoby takes a literalistic approach to Scripture in his “Love, Honor, and Obey,” while Walter C. Hobbs argues the opposite perspective in his “The Contemporary Church: Instrument or Idol?” In fact, one of the specific examples used by Hobbs concerned the relationship of husbands and wives, and stood in bold contrast to Bustanoby’s whole approach.
The “one flesh” concept invoked by Bustanoby, derived from Genesis, is appropriate to marriage as an “order of creation,” universally applicable and basic to all human relationships. It is hardly a distinctively New Testament concept, and does not touch upon the sacramental aspects distinctive of a Christian marriage—i.e. a Christ-centered and mediated relationship.
Nor is Bustanoby’s treatment adequately biblical. Even in Genesis, it is quite clear that Adam was in need of a helper and was just as dependent upon Eve as she on him. And treating of Christian marriage, St. Paul in First Corinthians 11 (in a context as “extreme” as any, yet not used at all by Bustanoby) writes “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman” (1 Cor. 11:11, italics added).
Wesley Methodist Church
Worcester, Mass.
Ninth On The List
Missing from the list in “Campus Tensions and Evangelical Response” (June 6) of eight general guidelines to enable evangelical schools to fulfill more effectively their responsibility to this generation of students and to the Kingdom of God is a ninth, to wit, raise up an intelligent evangelical apologetic which will enable our students to know (a) what they believe, and (b) why. It is the failure, by and large, of our contemporary evangelical churches to do just this in their teaching and preaching which is causing our evangelical schools to reap a harvest of students who are “carried about with divers and strange doctrines” (Heb. 13:9). After thirty years in the Presbyterian pastorate and two years as Taylor University pastor, I pray daily that God will forgive me for the pulpit games I played in the name of preaching.
University Pastor
Taylor University
Upland, Ind.
Dismal Good News
Your dismal report on the floundering American Association of Evangelical Students (AAES), “A Setback for Evangelical Students” (News, June 6), was really good news. With a little luck the AAES may soon disappear altogether.…
As the 1967–68 student-body president of Seattle Pacific College, I had the privilege of representing my school at the Pacific Student Presidents Association convention in Salt Lake City. We felt it was more expedient to have a Christian impact at a conference of West Coast student leaders than it was to fly east and share precious Bible verses with other Christians in the AAES who just talk about how to share Christ.…
My suggestion is that the AAES disband and encourage evangelical colleges to expand their student budgets to include trips outside the cozy walls of Christendom. At SPC we called it on-the-job training. And it does get results. At the Salt Lake City convention, I joined efforts with several other Christian-college student leaders (particularly the Westmont College prexy) and successfully lobbied for holding the next convention at Disneyland instead of Las Vegas!
Deerfield, Ill.
Beyond The ‘Barb’
I was delighted to see that my informal article on seminary reading is being given “national coverage,” at least in part (News, Panorama, June 6).
I am somewhat less happy that I was slightly misquoted: what I actually said about the Berkeley Barb was that “it is almost impossible to keep copies in the library.” Contrary to the implication of your excerpt, we have only one subscription, copies of which do, indeed, tend to wander off. More important, I think, is the fact that you took a statement, meant as an “eye-catcher,” out of its context, which goes on to give the reasons that the Barb and similar papers are read. In addition, the bulk of my article goes into some detail about the more serious reading of seminary students. I think the impression left by your article deserves some correction.
(The Rev.) DAVID E. GREEN
Librarian
San Francisco Theological Seminary
San Anselmo, Calif.
