When I read a recent news item that L. M. Clymer, president of Holiday Inns, was resigning his position because of a corporate decision to invest $25 million in a gambling casino in Atlantic City—a decision he had protested on moral grounds—I was impressed. Here was that rare modern man who was willing to sacrifice power and money for his convictions.
So I wrote to Mr. Clymer, expressing my appreciation for his action, and for the irenic way in which he had announced it.
I have now received a reply from which I quote: “You will understand that this was not of my own strength or will, but Christ acting through me. In him all things are possible. The assurance and peace which he has brought me in this decision are the greatest testimony I can give of his love for each of us.”
God, give its more L. M. Clymers in business, in the professions, in government, in every part of American life.
EUTYCHUS VIII
Keen Disappointment
I was keenly disappointed in the treatment given to the New International Version in the October 20 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. The editorial was very good, underlining the need for understandable translations and reminding us of the use of everyday language in the original texts. The positive attitude toward new translations was very healthy. However, the article by Leland Ryken, “The Literary Merit of the New International Version,” had an entirely different impact that tended to erase the good effects of the editorial.
JOHN A. ZOLLER
West Oneonta, N.Y.
The October 20 issue carried an article by Leland Ryken dealing with the literary merit of the New International Version. I am somewhat concerned that CHRISTIANITY TODAY would, in my opinion, waste two pages dealing with the “literary merit” of a version of Scripture. I appreciate good literature and its value, but the question is whether or not literary value is any concern of God’s or should be a concern of ours, in his Word!… Is not God’s concern that we understand and do his Word? The chief test for a translation of Scripture seems to be its ability to communicate truth. I think it’s very nice that we are concerned about literary merit; however, I believe that God is concerned with one thing, and that is communication. I find it difficult to believe that “God’s way and God’s thought” would relate to a translation’s value as literature! May we be concerned about knowing God and what he says to us first, foremost, and finally.
DENNIS L. GORTON
Northwest Church
Farmington Hills, Mich.
This morning I saw my first issue of your magazine and was intrigued, because my academic field in seminary and graduate school was Old Testament and Semitics, and two of your articles were devoted to the New International Version and a third was a comparison of twelve English-language versions. To my horror I found that the Living Bible was included among the twelve as a “version”—oh, well, the original twelve had their Iscariot.
DONALD W. GOODWIN
The United Church
Oak Ridge, Tenn.
May I please make two comments about Ryken’s evaluation of the literary merit of the NIV? First, he may be an associate professor of English, but his English, which is actually that of 1611, certainly isn’t mine. Our language has changed drastically since then, but he writes as though he isn’t aware of it. Second, it would have been helpful had he known Hebrew. For if he had, he would not have endorsed the RSV—particularly in the Old Testament, where the RSV freely emends the Masoretic Text. As for LaSor’s review, he makes “authoritative” prounouncements about several passages where no interpreter has a right to be dogmatic. For example, it is by no means certain that Genesis 1:1 is a dependent clause; the Hebrew does not clearly use the verb to return in Psalm 23:6; the Hebrew does not clearly read “young woman” in Isaiah 7:14; the clause in Ezekiel 38:2 probably should not be rendered the way he indicates; etc., etc.
KENNETH L. BARKER
Professor of Semitics and Old Testament
Dallas Theological Seminary
Dallas, Tex.
Lasting Satisfaction?
I predict that Sandra Majorowicz will find no lasting happiness in the singles group which she praised in her article “Single Adults Are Grown Up, Too” (Oct. 20). Any group which declares itself special (or accepts this designation from others), and isolates itself, is bound to have problems. Majorowicz describes a group of insecure people trying to show that they can succeed on their own. They’re trying too hard to fulfill “their” needs.… I have sought happiness and found only loneliness and sorrow. I have followed God’s will in visiting the sick and the prisoner and experienced indescribable joy. Keep your specialized groups concentrating on their own problems. Give me individuals, married or single, members of denominations or unattached, who seek to know the will of God and do it.
DON MATSCHULL
Dallas, Tex.
I jumped for joy reading your recent article “Single Adults Are Grown Up, Too.” As a single adult, I feel deeply the frustration of being considered not quite a “whole person” and the accompanying alienation in not being able to fellowship or assume responsibility among marrieds within the local church. Why is it that marriage is the spiritual plateau that must be reached before acceptance to fellowship can be realized? Contrary to popular belief, the Holy Spirit does bestow gifts to single adults to be used within the context of the local church, and fellowship with couples is needed for the full development of those gifts given by God to mature his body.
KEITH DIETZ
Frederick, Md.
Issue of The Heart
I am grateful to God and deeply appreciative for Douglas Kiesewetter’s editorial (“The Root of All Evil,” Oct. 20). The author reaches depths of truth and challenge rarely touched when such subjects are considered. His insights are vitally important to us all.… This is good editorializing as well as good preaching! It touches the heart of the issue, and the issue is the heart! We need to hear this kind of prophetic voice. Give us lots more!
GEORGE TAYLOR
New Life Ministries Church
Columbus, Ga.
Love Distorted
I was appalled to read in the October 20 issue (News, “An Aggressive Faith”) that Paul Lindstrom, pastor of the Church of Christian Liberty, is recruiting a unit of commandos to send to Rhodesia to avenge the murder of British Pentecostal missionaries. Does Lindstrom believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is served by putting bullets through the heads of its enemies? It is a nauseating distortion of the love that the Lord taught his church. Christians have faced martyrdom with love, courage, and prayer for their persecutors since the earliest days of the Church. Lindstrom’s attitude repudiates their acts of witness, as well as the obedience of Jesus himself in dying for us on the cross.
JOHN E. BORREGO
St. Francis Episcopal Church
Greensboro, N. C.
Painfully Appalled
Because Elizabeth Elliot’s books Through Gates of Splendor and Shadow of the Almighty have had such a mighty impact on my life, it was with pain and disbelief that I read her interview “Not About Women Only” and her article “Furnace of the Lord” in the October 6 issue. How could she, such a stickler for detail, be so careless with her facts?… I said I was pained, but not so much because of her errors of fact obviously based on a short visit to Israel and a complete lack of knowledge of Judaism, but because she uses half-truths to build her theology of Israel. Her bias towards Jews and Israel is evident. Note her vitriolic language: “And although Israel is militantly a racist political state …” Because of the blessing she has in the past been to me and to so many others, I pray that God will cause her to re-examine her facts and her motives.
DAVID BIVIN
Jerusalem, Israel
How disheartening it was to learn that those thousands of dollars and thousands of hours spent in my education at the seminary where Elliot occasionally teaches have all been in vain. Had I only known that my shelf of Lewis was all I needed I would not have wasted all this time and money pursuing the trivialities of Barth, Brunner, and Wesley.
DAVID L. JAMES
S. Hamilton, Mass.
Reading Materials For Fairies
I appreciate the series of articles on “South Africa” (July 21) … often your articles are so rambling and impractical that only fairies who lived a thousand years should spend the time to read them.
DAVID P. TEAGUE
Dorchester, Mass.
