A PLACE TO STAND
They made it clear that there was absolutely no financial obligation. We would be their guests for the weekend at a motel with dinner and breakfast included. Our only obligation was to view the beautiful vacation property they were developing, complete with Olympic-size swimming pool, $3 million club house, and thousand-acre lake.
“Why not?” said my wife. “We can spend a weekend in the mountains at their expense. And besides, you’ve been talking about buying some land for a weekend retreat.”
Her arguments were persuasive. I knew they had been persuasive when I saw her packing the suitcase.
The land developer was true to his word. We were housed in a nice motel and given dinner and breakfast. After breakfast, the “hostess” rounded us all up to board the bus that would take us to the property.
After a twenty-minute ride the bus pulled off the state highway onto a gravel road. We wound along for several miles, trailing a huge cloud of dust. The restful blue-greens of the forest lining the road were periodically punctuated by garish yellow earth-moving equipment idled by the weekend. Apparently abandoned where four o’clock overtook their operators, the machines looked like Wellesian monsters that had suddenly expired.
The bus came to a halt by a row of dust-covered Continentals, and we were greeted by a sport-shirted salesman named Jim Patterson. His first words to us were a chummy “May I call you by your first name?”
We piled into his tan Continental, which, we were soon informed, cost $8,600. “You like to make money, don’t you?” he inquired cordially. “I mean, you like to make money some other way than by the sweat of your brow, don’t you?”
I answered with a rather weak “I suppose so.”
“Well,” said ol’ Jim, “land’s the way to do it. Do you realize that nothing shows the kind of financial gain you get with land?”
What I realized was that the sales pitch had begun and that there would be no turning it off until it had run its prescribed course.
“Land is giving out,” he said. “You know, pretty soon we’re going to have to require cremation! There just isn’t going to be enough land to use it for a useless thing like burying bodies. The way we’re going, the time will come when there’ll only be a square foot of space for each person. Where will you be then if you haven’t bought a little land? And if you have bought land, think of how much more it’s going to be worth.”
An evangelist’s fervor gripped him as he moved to his conclusion. “Don’t forget,” he said, “God has quit making land, but he keeps on making people.”
It might be well if we all spent some time thinking about the future terrors possibly inherent in that simple truth.
THE RIGHT PERSPECTIVE
The article by Mary Bouma, “Liberated Mothers” (May 7), certainly provided a valuable and refreshing view of the role of the mother in today’s society. It is precisely this attitude that is needed if Christian education is to be successfully reintroduced into the realm originally intended for it, namely the home. So often the only difference between a burden and a privilege lies in the perspective from which it is viewed.
First Baptist Church
Los Angeles, Calif.
DEATH TO OVERKILL
The comments by Dr. Carl H. Reidel in “Christianity and the Environmental Crisis” (April 23) constitute a prime example of how extremism can rear its ugly head in most any situation.
Let’s look at a few facts:
1. We are told by some that the burning of fuels by industry is using up the earth’s oxygen and that eventually there won’t be any left and we will suffocate. The National Science Foundation recently collected air samples at seventy-eight sites around the world and compared them with samples taken sixty-one years ago. Result: there is today precisely the same amount of oxygen in the air as there was in 1910—20.95 per cent.
2. Some say that it cannot be denied that our air is getting more fouled up all the time. In New York City, for example, New York’s Department of Air Resources reports a year-by-year decrease in air pollutants since 1965. The air there is cleaner today than it was a hundred years ago when people burned soft coal and you could cut the smog with a knife.
3. We are told that in the days before America was industrialized our rivers and lakes were crystal clear. True. And those crystal-clear rivers and lakes were the source of the worst cholera, yellow fever, and typhoid epidemics the world has ever known. Just one of these epidemics—in 1793—killed one of every five residents of Philadelphia.
4. How about mercury in tuna fish? Some say it came from American industries. The truth, as scientists will tell you, is that the mercury came from deposits in nature. Fish caught forty-four years ago and just analyzed contain twice as much mercury as any fish processed this year.
5. What about the DDT story? DDT proved its value almost overnight. After World War II, grain fields once ravaged by insects began producing bumper crops. Marshland became habitable. And the death rate in many countries fell sharply. Largely because of food surpluses made possible by DDT, famines became relatively rare. So DDT can be credited with the saving of many hundreds of additional lives. So—what has now happened in the effort to phase-out DDT? Malaria, virtually conquered throughout the world, is having a resurgence. Food production is down in many areas. And such pests as the gypsy moth, in hiding since the 1940s, are now munching away in the forests.
Prudence, of course, must be followed in dealing with ecological problems, but there must be some balance in the discussions. The overkill in the use of words should be stopped.
Aiken, S.C.
Dr. Carl Reidel’s comments were right to the heart of the ecology problem—priorities, self-discipline, and stewardship. Regarding Genesis 1:26–28, God’s purpose was for man to “subdue” and “have dominion over every living thing.” His method at that time called for man to be “fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.” Now, though his purpose remains constant (man is still to rule over the environment God has provided), God’s method (if man uses the intelligence and will that God gave him as part of the “image of God”) would seem to call for control on everything that contributes to pollution, including population growth.
The facts are clear. If we don’t quit multiplying and start controlling, we will soon be subdued. That is hardly what God had in mind
Twin Grove Baptist Church
Buffalo Grove, Ill.
It was with considerable disappointment that I read Dr. Carl H. Reidel’s recommendation of tithing to the church as the primary means of evangelical Christians helping to combat environmental tragedy. This suggestion will simply reinforce the complacency of the wealthy, doctrine-oriented evangelical who is already giving 10 per cent and more but still has a large sum of money left to provide himself with a luxurious style of living. The real issue is not what we give but what we have left and how we use it. Moreover, a fully tithing evangelical church could hardly be expected to “launch direct environmental efforts” with the money and is in no position to “tell the world about a life style that gets at the root of the problem” because we have not yet discovered and do not demonstrate such a life style.
Although the Bible itself is not the culprit in producing the environmental crisis, our materialistic expression of Christianity certainly has to shoulder a lot of the blame. It’s no use blaming the existentialists, as the “Terracide” editorial seems to be trying to do. Existentialism only gained popularity as a disillusioned new generation began to ask, “What sort of earth will we inherit, if any?” Far more stockholders and board chairmen are Christian than existentialist, and some of them were masters of “contextual ethics” long before “do your own thing” was ever heard of.…
Perhaps if we all spent less time and energy pointing our fingers at the alcoholic mote in our brother’s eye and began to concentrate on the gluttonous beam in our own, the Lord could help us find some solutions and give us insights into changes necessary in our own value system. Until then, the followers of Jesus Christ are in no position to “persuade men to change,” as “Terracide” suggests.
Phoenix, Ariz.
WHO SPEAKS FOR WHOM?
The official position of the Episcopal Church on abortion and reform of the laws pertaining thereto is NOT as stated in an article on that subject (News, “The Churches’ Stand On Abortion,” April 23).
What the author quoted is completely out of context. He is probably quoting an action taken by the ladies of the Church—in their 33rd triennial meeting.
The General Convention of the Church is the only body that can make official statements. And, the 62nd General Convention, meeting in Seattle in 1967, adopted a position contrary to the impression your article gives. The action of the Church is stated.… “Resolved, that the 62nd General Convention of the Church support abortion-law reform, to permit the termination of pregnancy, where the decision to terminate has been arrived at with proper safeguards against abuse, and where it has been clearly established that the physical health of the mother is threatened seriously, or where there is substantial reason to believe that the child would be born badly deformed in mind or body, or where pregnancy has resulted from forcible rape or incest.”
The women may speak for themselves, but only General Convention can speak for the Church.
Deputy to 62nd Gen. Con.
Diocese of Pittsburgh
All Saints Church
Verona, Pa.
• We stand corrected.—ED.
