In honor of CT’s fortieth anniversary, this issue’s Reflections page is devoted to excerpts from articles appearing in the magazine’s first year (Oct. 5, 1956-Sept. 30, 1957).
Preach with Conviction I think it was Goethe who said, after hearing a young minister, “When I go to hear a preacher preach, I may not agree with what he says, but I want him to believe it.” Even a vacillating unbeliever has no respect for the man who lacks the courage to preach what he believes.
-Billy Graham (#1, Oct. 5, 1956)
The Church’s Business It is surprising how easily we can see the place of the church community in terms of social reform in some directions but not in others. The Church stands usually against liquor and the liquor “interests,” that is, the business of liquor. The church community is always against organized vice, against narcotics. In the past the Church as such took a stand against slavery and felt called upon to speak out against child labor even when such speaking hurt profits. We accept these victories over injustice in former days as assumptions of the position of the Church in our own day; it is harder to see in our contemporary scene just what it is that the Church is called upon to do.
-Addison Leitch (#1, Oct. 15, 1956)
Cool Catacombs I belong to a mortgage-free church that installed an air-conditioner this summer at a total cost of $10,000 instead of hiring a director of religious education. The most charitable reason [one could give] for the action is that the Board of Trustees wished to restore the atmosphere of the catacombs, which I understand were cool.
-Kermit Eby (#5, Dec. 10, 1956)
Change of Heart Good will toward all men is a result of the invasion of the super-natural! A state of good intention with “heartiness and cheerful consent” toward all mankind, if Webster is correct. A state of heart so extraordinary as to be unheard of, except by those who have been hurled out into the place of joyful, utter despair with themselves where they are finally allowing Jesus Christ to be Himself in them!
-Eugenia Price (#5, Dec. 10, 1956)
No Cost Too Great We have proved beyond any doubt that He means what He says-His grace is sufficient, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. We pray that if any, anywhere, are fearing that the cost of discipleship is too great, that they may be given to glimpse that treasure in heaven promised to all who forsake.
-Elisabeth Elliot, on behalf of the five widows of slain missionaries to Ecuador one year after their deaths (#7, Jan. 7, 1957; see also p. 20 in this issue)
Truth on the Block The supplanting of sound values by the world’s methods of popularity and success may be clouding the influence of the Bible upon our writing. This is a difficult problem. Christian writing needs the note of contemporaneity, but never at the expense of truth.
-Frank E. Gaebelein (#9, Feb. 4, 1957)
More Than a Formula It is the temptation of this pragmatic age to presume that technique is the secret of evangelism.
-A. Skevington Wood (#9, Feb. 4, 1957)
Whose Truth? Not a little preaching is much more imposition than exposition.
-W. Graham Scroggie (#11, Mar. 4, 1957)
Everyone’s Loss I would not have thought that separation of church and state requires a platform of spiritual and ethical values indifferent to the question whether God is living or not. In fact, I rather think the founding fathers would have warned us that the loss of the Creator would sooner or later involve us-by the most rigorous logic-in the loss also of unalienable rights, and of enduring moral and spiritual values.
-Carl F. H. Henry (#17, May 27, 1957)
What Price Progress? We live in a time of unprecedented discoveries, many of which tend to make life longer and living more comfortable and enjoyable. But with change and progress the inexorable law of change and decay also operates. Strange that so few in this world prepare for the inevitable.
-L. Nelson Bell (#24, Sept. 16, 1957
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