Learning The Lingo
A young friend of mine recently became a Christian and is working at changing a lot of his habits. One of his toughest adjustments has been in the area of language. Of course, there’s no way around it. If my friend Jim is going to be an evangelical Christian, he has to learn to talk like one.
To help Jim get into the swing of things, I’ve been coaching him in evangelical lingo for the past few weeks. For example, instead of asking, “What’s wrong with you?” of a moody Christian, Jim has learned to query, “What’s troubling your heart?”
He knows not to say, “Siegfried died,” but “Siegfried went to be with the Lord.” And no longer does he comment after a sermon, “That was a great talk, Reverend Walker.” Now he knows to say, “Your message really ministered to me, Pastor Ken.”
At an impasse in an argument, Jim used to state, “I think you’re wrong.” Today he declares as a clincher, “I’ll pray for you.”
Jim has a girlfriend in the church singles group, and he thinks learning the proper language may have increased the chances of a successful marriage proposal. Once he would have put forward the flat and deadly blunt, “Will you marry me?” No longer—he is informed of the irresistible, “Is the Lord leading you to be my wife?”
I must say that Jim is a quick learner. The other evening he mentioned something that gave me insight into a man who has given me some difficulties on a church committee. “I’m glad you told me that,” I said.
“Wait a moment,” Jim said as he raised his palm. “Shouldn’t you say, ‘I’m just really glad you shared that with me’?”
EUTYCHUS
Smooth-Tongued Evangelists
I appreciate Kenneth S. Kantzer’s editorial, “The Cut-Rate Grace of a Health and Wealth Gospel” [June 14]. For too long Christians have been duped by smooth-tongued evangelists into seeking the god of money and earthly ambition rather than the Jesus of sacrifice.
KAYLA L. MCCLURG
Edmond, Okla.
Give me hope anytime over what is in this article. Hope coupled with faith in our God can conquer all! I sincerely believe our Heavenly Father wants to and does bless us in this life.
JANE D. PRENTICE
Bowie, Md.
Not long ago, I was appalled to hear a preacher on a major Christian TV network claim that because the soldiers cast lots for Christ’s garments, Jesus was obviously well-clothed. Therefore, the preacher said, God desires material prosperity for all of his children. I can’t think of a better characterization of the success theologians, who twist the meaning of the Bible to validate their own misguided views of God.
NINA M. FISHWICK
Ventura, Calif.
I am appalled that by printing this you would seek to estrange millions of Spirit-filled, Pentecostal believers who interpret the Scriptures differently than you. This broad “painting-all-with-the-same brush” approach puts us all in the same category with those who do not believe in the compatibility of medical science and faith healing.
DR. ROY H. HICKS
International Church
of the Foursquare Gospel
Los Angeles, Calif.
Losing Ground: A Liberal Bias?
James Skillen’s review of Charles Murray’s Losing Ground [June 14], encouraged me to read the book, though the reviewer’s liberal political bias is flagrant. He complains Murray has not offered a better alternative; what he really means is that Murray has not offered better government programs. Suppose an army general conceded that a certain weapon system failed and was of no help in combat, but argued we should buy the weapon anyway because no one had designed one that did work. That is analogous to the position of Murray’s critics.
According to Skillen, Murray contends that these federal welfare programs have actually made things worse for poor people. If that is true, then Christian compassion and a biblical concern for social justice require us to work to abolish these programs as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Skillen splits hairs over old elites versus new elites and structuralists versus individualists.
WAYNE SHOCKLEY
Brooklyn, Wis.
I neither support welfare nor empirical argumentation. However, Murray’s review was in the (liberal) tradition of your magazine. Give us three socialist and one (token) conservative (Nash), and we’ll have us a fine article!
M. H. SCHELB
Coral Springs, Fla.
Bravo, CT, for a timely treatment. I attended a recent lecture at Harvard where a world-renowned economist dismissed Murray as a Reaganite whose purpose was to remove the poor from our concern and to provide conservatives with a quasi-academic justification for draconian cuts in American social welfare programs. I find the contributors to CT have provided more insight than this Nobel prize winner.
DONALD A. YERXA, PH.D.
Eastern Nazarene College
Quincy, Mass.
The burden of care for the poor rests squarely on the shoulders of those whose beliefs motivate them to compassion for the poor. Government may serve the church by providing a safe environment for its work. But we may not use it to enforce an artificial level of personal sanctity in every citizen.
DON NEUENDORF
Defiance, Ohio
Walking The Line
Thanks for J. Grant Swank’s “Groping for God’s Kind Face Again” [Ministries, June 14]. I, too, had a “living-room experience” with a young lady who had an abortion. Somehow we as ministers must walk the line, upholding our biblically based, uncompromising opposition to the moral curse of legalized abortion, yet offering to broken people the love and forgiveness of God.
REV. KEVIN M. ULMET
Capital Church of the Nazarene
Frankfort, Ky.
I deplore the necessity of abortion as Swank does, but I am also firmly committed to the right of every woman to have a legally permissible and medically safe abortion for just the kind of experience he described. Given that “what to do with a soul set on fire with its own burning coals was a complicated assignment,” it is even more complicated for the young woman, who must also experience the guilt, pain, and fear of an illegal abortion.
REV. JOHN R. FRIZZELL, JR.
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church
Annandale, Va.
The Lord weeps not only for the sudden physical death of aborted children, but also for the slow spiritual death of their parents and doctors.
HOLLY E. KANE
Somerville, N.J.
I am more concerned about victims of rapists or drunken relatives who may have no pastor to confide in. They may have to suffer a lifetime of condemnation because they have heard the simple slogan that abortion is murder. Abortion in some instances is the lesser of two evils.
B. DAVID HOSTETTER
Hector, N.Y.
Achieving World Peace
I was outraged after reading about Sun Myung Moon’s latest attempt at mass deceit (CAUSA) and the adjacent story of Greg Dixon’s resignation from the Coalition for Religious Freedom [News, June 14], I would like to believe that all Christians affiliated in any capacity with Moon would follow in Dixon’s footsteps. However noble and utopic CAUSA’s world view may appear, the simple truth is that world peace cannot be achieved through human efforts.
NORMA DOUGET
Bay City, Tex.
To publish Richard Bello’s troubled feelings as evidence that CAUSA’s audiences are being “solicited” is to attempt to create a myth from one person’s feelings. CAUSA is out to sell a point of unified action. I detected no sinister undercurrent. To my knowledge there is no proselyting going on. True, CAUSA is funded largely with Unification money. The United Nations is funded largely with U.S. bucks; does that make it sinister?
REV. RON MCCULLOUGH
Asbury United Methodist Church
Tacoma, Wash.
The Concepts Aren’t Dead
This renewed attempt to bring to public notice the death, not of God but of old theological concepts, shows that these concepts are far from being dead [“Twenty Years After the Death of God Movement,” June 14], They still trouble the consciousness even of these death-of-God theologians.
ERIC VAN BUREN
Zanesville, Ohio
Thomas J. J. Altizer described it clearly when he spoke of the death of God as a historical event. It was a cosmic act of transition within God by which the transcendent God became immanent. The God-above-us had to die in order for him to become the God-with-us.
FRANK JAKUBOWSKY
Oakland, Calif.
Alcoholism: Only An Illness?
Are we to suppose that “Dying for a Drink,” [May 17] now becomes the position of evangelical Christians? Are we to understand that alcoholism is to be considered an illness similar to coronary disease, diabetes, and cancer? I note more than 50 references to the subject of wine and drinking of intoxicants in my concordance. To imply that alcoholism should be considered like any major physical illness, one would have to change the text of 1 Corinthians 6 where we are told that such will not enter the kingdom of God.
I am thrilled that we have facilities to treat the results of alcoholism. I am appalled to think that we are ready to go to such lengths to say that God no longer holds a person responsible for choosing to become an alcoholic.
DON MIKEL
Ventura Missionary Church
Ventura, Calif.
Neither CT nor Dr. Spickard intended to imply that alcoholism is purely a physical issue. Scripture is clear concerning the morality involved; but once an individual is enslaved, the church needs to know how to respond psychologically and biblically.
—Eds.
An Infallible Book
I detected whispers of insecurity in your coverage of Thomas Howard’s conversion to Catholicism [May 17]. Woodbridge’s criticisms of Howard’s fascination and defense of an infallible church could just as easily have been directed toward Woodbridge’s commitment to an infallible book.
ALBERT KRESTA
Eden Books
Southgate, Mich.
As a former Roman Catholic priest, I respectfully ask: How does one ignore the patent contradictions and incompatibilities of Roman Catholic teaching and practices with the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the Bible?
BARTHOLOMEW F. BREWER
Mission to Catholics
International, Inc.
San Diego, Calif.
One cannot help wondering what was lacking in Thomas Howard’s theological education. In spite of his undoubtedly sincere attempts at rationalization, he has jettisoned the unique authority of the Bible.
REV. WILLIAM T. STRONG
Forest Falls, Calif.
