Eutychus and His Kin: June 24, 1957

MINISTER CHEEVY

(With profound apologies to Edwin Arlington Robinson)

Minister Cheevy, man of cloth,

Grew sleek while he assured the matrons.

He feared no wardrobe-eating moth

For he had patrons.

Reverend Cheevy loved the sight

Of crowded pews at Sunday service.

His rhetoric was at its height

When he was nervous.

Pastor Cheevy could obtain

Rapport with tense, neurotic people.

The soothing of his manner sane

Was like a peace pill.

President Cheevy always ran

Church meetings with a smooth decorum.

The board would somehow choose his plan

In open forum.

Rotarian Cheevy could relax

With all the boys at business lunches.

He knew the art of slapping backs

And pulling punches.

Doctor Cheevy wrote a book

That traced the road of human progress.

An author, father, husband, cook,

He ran for Congress.

Minister Cheevy filled his roles

With balanced poise beyond aspersion.

This guide of souls met all his goals

—But lacked conversion!

EUTYCHUS

LIBERAL CHURCH UNION

The watchword of the Ecumenical Movement … is “Organic Union.” Steps toward mutual understanding, recognition, or agreement between Christian churches which do not make “Organic Union” their ultimate objective are disparaged by the leaders of this “Liberal Ecumenicism.” They have no compunctions about jeopardizing the results of every other kind of approach to unity. They plainly consider intercommunion or mutual recognition valueless. To them, Organic Union is all.

How remote this is from the biblical picture! In the New Testament we see organically separate churches, according full recognition to one another. There is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, but not one organization. All are accountable to the Apostolic Council, but the Council is called because the Churches desire it.… The Church must be an organism organically united to its Head, who sits at the right hand of the Father. As soon as it is organically united to a single earthly head, it begins to cease to be united to the heavenly. This is the general aspect of the problem. I want to mention a specific one.

The “Church of South India” is the most successful experiment to date of the liberal ecumenical movement. It is a union of Methodist, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches. We are here criticising one feature of this experiment, but we do not mean thereby to imply that there is nothing good about the South India achievement, for other features are independent of our criticism.

The distinctive feature of the “Church of South India”, which includes about a quarter of the Christians in the area, is that it accepts an Episcopal form of church government, but without “any particular view or belief concerning orders of the ministry” (Constitution, Chapter II, Section 11). Though it sounds innocent enough to say that no particular view or belief is required, the effect is the same as if every view or belief were forbidden.

No view may be taught authoritatively. Any person who advocates a definite view will be accused of attempting to destroy the union. The denominations which have joined to form the Church of South India have had to abandon the principle of loyalty to Holy Scripture in order to do this. The former Anglicans have had to do it in one way, and the former non-Episcopalians in another. The former Anglicans previously accepted and continued the Episcopate because they taught and believed that it was scriptural (see the Ordinal in the Book of Common Prayer of the Protestant Episcopal Church, pp. 529 ff.).

Now, those who have gone into the South India Union retain the Episcopate, but by the terms of the Union must relinquish the claim that it is scriptural. They must in practice teach their spiritual descendants that they have the Episcopate, but that it is not required by Scripture.

Those who went into the Union from non-Episcopal churches are in a corresponding predicament. They formerly believed that Scripture taught the parity of ministers. Now they accept an imparity but without any claim that it is scriptural. It would not have been wrong in principle if they had accepted the Episcopal form of government because they had become convinced that the Reformers were wrong, and that Scripture did not, after all, teach the parity of ministers. Nothing of the kind happened, however. They accepted the Episcopate without having any such scriptural reason. What is worse, the giving of such a reason is specifically excluded. That would be “a particular view or belief concerning orders of the ministry.”

A more cynical attitude towards the Scriptures could scarcely be imagined. Had all the uniting churches come to the explicit conclusion that Scripture had nothing definite to say about Church government, it would have been less cynical. But even that seems to be excluded as a “particular view or belief!”

Many Evangelicals find that in the matter of theology the South India Constitution and Basis of Union are even more cynical. The “Basis of Union”, having commended the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds states, in a footnote (Section 3) that “The uniting Churches accept the fundamental truths embodied in the Creeds as providing a sufficient basis of union; but do not intend thereby to demand the assent of individuals to every word and phrase in them.…” The cynicism concerning the Creeds here expressed in words is similar to the cynicism about the Scriptures expressed in actions with respect to the ministry.

The Liberal Ecumenicist concept of the church fails because it leaves out the middle term of the description “one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.” Faith is left out to make room for the term “one Organization.” It is worse than left out, for by eschewing any “particular interpretation”, a liberal ecumenical union in practice requires a vague or lax interpretation of both Scriptures and Creeds.

The insistence on “one organization” is certainly not a Reformation concept. We have indicated above that it is not a New Testament concept. Where, then, does it come from? It is a characteristically and specifically Roman Catholic concept. Liberal ecumenicists have unconsciously, almost instinctively clung to this non-biblical, un-Protestant concept. Ironical it is, for that is the very concept which was back of the trouble the Reformation sought to remedy. Liberalism has the same root disease, with the difference that where Roman Catholicism is a bureaucracy for the maintenance of a distinct and vigorous (albeit mistaken) faith, the liberal ecumenical church would be a bureaucracy for the propagation of no faith at all.…

The end result of the liberal ecumenical movement would be a Protestant Pope ruling over a doctrinal blob. No doubt the “Pope” would be a committee, not an individual. So much the worse! Scripture shows a better way.

ROGER GEFFEN

Church of the Good Shepherd

Wakefield, Bronx, N. Y.

WHAT SCRIPTURE FORBIDS

I certainly appreciate … CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Your articles and features have been thought-stimulating … a wedding of the spiritual and intellectual much needed today. Keep up the Gospel approach. No magazine has the right to the name Christian which does not present the message of our Lord and Master. Yours certainly does.…

I would like to comment on “The Headship of Christ” (April 29). The author states: “Without a scriptural warrant she (the church) can make no requirement binding the consciences of men.… We multiply error when we first make our own laws and then use the church of God to enforce them. Accordingly, nothing ought to be regarded as a matter of offense or as a cause for discipline in the Church except that which can be shown to be contrary to the word of God.” This has always been the determining factor in the Lutheran Church, regarding both faith and practice. We dare not command nor forbid, where God has not already done so.

Yet in the paragraph following the author gives the obscure impression that this is not so in the Lutheran Church. In the Reformation period we retained much that was ancient and good, such as altars, vestments, church music and gothic architecture, simply because there was no scriptural warrant for discarding them. Today many reformed churches are returning to these age-old “customs”—for the same reason. Anything that enhances worship, that directs the worship away from self toward God, that centralizes the worship in the message of God rather than in the individual participant—is good.

As for the Bible being a “book of Common Worship,” that is impossible. No order of worship could be devised entirely on the basis of Scripture. Here Christian judgment and the needs of the people must decide. Worship must be living and vital. It must be orderly and dignified. “Let all things be done for edification, for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.”

R. J. MARTENS

Messiah Lutheran Church

Carlyle, Ill.

Thank you very much for letting me see the interesting letter from the Rev. Robert J. Martens. I hold his great Church in the highest esteem and certainly hope that you will publish his letter, or at least such part of it as corrects any misapprehension which my article may have carried concerning the Lutheran Church.

The historic positions of the two sister denominations of the Reformation were that the Lutheran Church rejected everything in the mediaeval worship which the Scripture condemned, while the Reformed body sought to introduce nothing into the worship but what the Scripture authorized.

Our Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., states that Christ as King has given to his Church officers, oracles and ordinances and has especially ordained therein his system of … and worship, all which are either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary inference may be deduced therefrom, to which things he commands that nothing be added and naught taken away. This, it seems to me, can be put in popular language by saying that the Bible is our Book of Worship. Of course, I give to Dr. Martens the privilege of differing with our position and hold him in high regard as a Christian brother and fellow minister of the Gospel.

WM. C. ROBINSON

Decatur, Ga.

SLAYING THE GIANT

Edward John Carnell asks … “Can Billy Graham Slay the Giant?” (May 13 issue). Why doesn’t this author have the simple courage to say … precisely what he means? Dr. Carnell does a neat little job of shadow-boxing in the field of semantics, “straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” … All the “fundies” with their bibliolatry … are making such desperate efforts to elevate themselves as impeccable leaders who “traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

C. SUMPTER LOGAN

First Presbyterian Church

Henderson, Ky.

The crux of Dr. Carnell’s article … is the sentence “But it so happens that sick people are more anxious to get well than … to learn how sick they are.” No one questions but that granite towers will offer little final resistance to the message of Billy Graham. But having cast out devils without all the diagnostic skill available are we certain that seven devils will not return to occupy the room of one? The aftermath of revivalism has before this brought us into a spiritual condition worse than before … Something must be done with the Paganism of New York City, God knows. But has Billy’s God the answer?

R. HULBERT

Pilgrim Heights Community Church

Minneapolis, Minn.

During the past week two papers have come to my desk, each of which contains articles attacking the person and evangelistic ministry of Billy Graham. The writers are professional evangelists.… Our Lord suffered this same jealousy and divisiveness among his own disciples.… May we today forget organizations and personalities, and fall on our knees, beseeching the Holy Spirit to move in a mighty way.…

R. E. HOOK

First Baptist Church

Canon City, Colo.

Dr. Carnell perhaps raises more interesting questions than he realizes … There is some justification to the criticism that Christian realism could stand to be more realistic about redemption … But, as Dr. Carnell almost comes to the point of saying, Christian orthodoxy must also become more realistic about the realities of the human situation. If theological justification for this sort of realism is needed, it might be remembered that in the definitive act of revelation the Word became flesh, not doctrine; we have to do with an incarnation, not an inscription.…

It seems as though contemporary orthodoxy has fallen into what a psychologist might call an “Elijah complex” … “I, even I only, am left …” (1 Ki. 19:10). Christian realism sees here, mixed with admirable dedication, something it calls pride. And its analysis pretty sharply hits the nail on the head. It is my feeling that Christian orthodoxy could profit from this insight.

PAUL MCKAY WRIGHT

First Presbyterian Church

Timnath, Colo.

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