Eutychus and His Kin: February 2, 1959

SERMON DOODLES

Dr. Knudal, one of our correspondents, received his degree in educational psychology for pioneering research in the repressed responses of a captive audience symbolized in sermon doodles. He has collected an initial sample of 64,926 doodles, representing the reactions of some 7,540 doodlers during 985 sermonic episodes. He plans to establish a clinic for the interpretation of doodles, and we submitted this sample for his comment. (The enumeration and notes are his.)

1. Gesture motif. One of the commonest preacher-based doodles. Significant index of character-image. Note mouth formation.

2. Spider webs. Intricate webs, coils, flourishes indicate impression of complexity. Check sermon structure.

3. Traffic warnings. Often sermon-orientated. Express resentment toward blocks in sermonic progress. 3? may be associated with this pattern, but is church location near grade crossing?

4. Ecclesiastical architecture. Usually suggested by church building. Visual exploration of interior is extensive and meticulous—fruitful doodle source.

5. Flower table. May be linked with 4 as interior scene, or with 6 below. Sometimes a doodle of contentment.

6. Hat show. In spite of association with 5, 6b is not an inverted flower pot. Hat contemplation unavoidable for shorter parishioners. See also Robert Burns, “To a Louse, on Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church.”

7. Time has run out. Time-lapse doodlery common among sermon listeners. Smoke above 7b suggests fate of dinner in oven. Above smoke is hour glass (or coffee maker?).

8. Neptune? Rare, meaning uncertain. If sample is from the South, this may be a Yankee Doodle.

Suggestions

a. Eliminate flowers, hats, architecture, etc.

b. Eliminate pencils, visitors, cards, hymnal fly-leaves.

c. Eliminate the preacher, (or—pray for a revival of gospel preaching!)

ON WORLD ORDER

I challenge your contention that the Cleveland discussions were not theologically motivated (Dec. 8 issue); that the lack of attendance when Mr. Dulles spoke represents a lack of interest in the ecumenical movement; that the ecumenical movement is not faithful to the Word of God.

Council of Churches of Greater Kansas City

Kansas City, Mo.

I appreciate very much the coverage you gave to the World Order Study Conference sponsored by the National Council of Churches. I think it is especially fitting that you pointed out that the “delegates tied their hopes to a revival of social gospelism and turned from the redemptive legacy of Christ.”

There are two things which greatly concern me about the Cleveland conference. The first is that the way in which the actions were reported through the press it seemed to be much more representative of Protestantism than it was in fact. There are many within National Council denominations that very directly disagree with the actions of the Cleveland conference. There are also millions of Protestants not represented by the National Council who would strongly oppose the admission of Red China to the U. N. and her recognition by our government.

The more serious matter is the fact that the World Order Study Conference ignored the fact that the Red Communist government is not truly a government of the people. It was imposed by force without the will of the people and with direct Russian aid to Communist forces. To accomplish this meant the slaughter of at least 20 million Chinese people, the enslavement of many more in at least 2,000 slave labor camps, and the subjugation of the church to the Communist cause. The true church in China has been driven completely underground. The visible church is a show window for foreign visitors completely under Communist control.

If church leaders are to favor the recognition of Red China, it means the surrender of Christian principles to Communist principles and the elevation of the Communist social order above the church of Jesus Christ.

The National Association of Evangelicals has issued a strong official statement against the recognition of Red China. We hope that millions of American Protestants will write the Department of State renouncing the statement made by the Cleveland conference.

Executive Director

The National Association of Evangelicals

Wheaton, Ill.

The cries of horror … against the … Fifth World Order Study Conference advocating U. S. recognition of Red China have left me somewhat chilled.… I detect two overtones, not directly sounded but none the less insinuated.

The first is that those who advocate such recognition are Communist sympathizers, fellow-travelers, or dwellers on the political left bank. Patently absurd!… The second overtone that I have caught in a number of articles, but muffled in your critique of the Conference’s pronouncement, is this; that our own brand of materialism bound up in our economic presuppositions and in our economic way of life is more conducive to spiritual growth and nurture than is the militantly atheistic brand that communism advocates.

… To be sure, neither Amos nor Jeremiah … was the most popular man in the land in his day!

First Presbyterian Church

Sodus, N. Y.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has proved so vital in many of the articles it has been publishing that I have profited greatly from some of the treatments there of Christianity in our modern world.

I am deeply disturbed at the action of the World Order Study Conference at Cleveland. That certainly does not represent the attitude of the overwhelming majority of the churches.… My own article, “A Trojan Horse,” … has been printed in about ten cities where my syndicated article appears. The response to it from people of all churches has been one of the most heartening that I have had in all the eleven years …

I have been writing “Spires of the Spirit.” The reaction has been altogether favorable and the letters have come from generals, admirals, high officials in government, members of the cabinet, legislators, business men—all of them outstanding laymen of their respective churches.

Chaplain

United States Senate

Washington, D. C.

When the World Order Study Conference of the greatest Protestant body in the United States today does lift the light of “a luminous cross” over the narrowing waters of American foreign policy, it seems a shame to me that your magazine would rather engage in innuendo and smear than publish an honest discussion of the merits or demerits of the resolution. You have acted no better than the Jesuits on this matter.

First Baptist Church

Roselle, N. J.

Bravo for your perceptive analysis of the shocking and immoral proposal of recognition by a “Christian” body of Communist China.

As a minister of the church to which both President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles belong, I too feel that now is no time to undercut the moral, spiritual and. diplomatic position our leaders take against encouraging the butchery and aggression of the Red government on the Chinese mainland.

Together with Dr. Daniel Poling, Dr. Norman Peale and CHRISTIANITY TODAY, I reject as leftist-inspired this recommendation of Red China recognition and we pray that the National Council of Churches will flatly reject the appeasement suggested by its Study Conference which has already damaged the cause of Christ wherever it has been publicized.

It is a large breach of our trust in the democratic procedure of the Council of Churches that this unacceptable committee proposal was publicized at all before action by the parent body which appointed it.

North Presbyterian Church

Pittsburgh, Pa.

The action of the World Order Study Conference of the National Council of Churches urging U. S. diplomatic recognition and U. N. admission of Red China is sickening. Communist China, as shown by recent factual articles in several magazines, is developing an idolatry such as the world has never known before—the worship of mass, dehumanized man. The goal appears to be a nation of selfless robots, a “human” ant hill. Deliberate and persistent elimination of tendencies to individuality and dissent from the stream of heredity may breed a half-billion population whose only philosophy of life will be “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.” Never before has humanity faced such a colossal menace. A few years ago liberals were confidently reassuring us that the Chinese Communists were idealistic “agrarian reformers.” The recent NCC action is surely a case of the blind attempting to lead the blind.

Beaver Falls, Pa.

Put me down as opposed to admission and recognition of Red China. Why deal with cutthroats as we do with Russia? I am a member of the Methodist church.… I stood 100 percent behind the DAR in their opposition to recognizing and bringing this red-handed organization into the UN.

Birch Run, Mich.

As to the action of … voting to receive that devil dominated country that has persecuted Jews, Catholics and Protestants, into the United Nations, it is absolutely repugnant to all real lovers of Christ. As a Southern Baptist, I am devoutly proud that as a body numbering approximately nine million we have no official relation with this body.…

Shiloh Baptist

Villa Ridge, Ill.

When even political leaders, military experts, and many others who do not represent the clergy but accept and uphold Christian faith, love, and truth, and can themselves see and warn of the dangers which do face this land of free men, it would seem clergymen themselves would open their eyes.…

Christ has a far different message to the churches than that which was drafted at Cleveland. It … can be found in the Bible.…

Tracy, Calif.

You don’t expect me to cut up my CHRISTIANITY TODAY, do you? But here is my ballot.…

Greenville, S. C.

SORROW BUT HOPE

Nothing has appeared in CHRISTIANITY TODAY which mingles more, hope and sorrow, with hope still uppermost—than “Where Are We Drifting?” (Dec. 22 issue). The very same idea appeared in a great sermon by Spurgeon in 1889, “A Dirge for the Downgrade and a Song for Faith” (Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpit), in which the great popular preacher uttered what could be words of sanguine augury: “The battle is not ours, but the Lord’s. God knows no difficulty. Omnipotence has servants everywhere. Sitting in the chimney-side tonight, a young Luther is preparing, as he looks into the fire, to burn the bulls of the philosophic hierarchy of today.”

Statesville, N. C.

I appreciate the frankness and reality that is presented in the editorial.… Thank you for being realistic about the world situation and our Christian situation.

New York, N. Y.

VIEWS OF REVELATION

James Packer … quotes me quite correctly in the discussion of contemporary views of revelation (Nov. 24 issue). He goes on, however, to say, “Theology pursued in this fashion is held to be ‘scientific’ and that on two accounts.”

There is some implication in the way he puts this that my own view of revelation, or the one I am summarizing, necessarily leads to this view that theology is scientific. He does not say that he is continuing to interpret my statement, but the reader might be misled on this point. However, I am not so much concerned about this as about the substantive matter that most of those for whom I am speaking in my statement about revelation would not hold that theology is scientific, and certainly not in the senses which Mr. Packer gives to that word here. Or rather, I should say that in the second sense of taking account of a scientific view of the Bible, he is correct. But on the first point of getting a strictly scientific elucidation of the nature of faith and its object, practically all the contemporary theologians that I am interpreting here would surely say no. Theology is a precise and responsible discipline, but it is confusing to call it scientific in this sense. Of course many contemporary theologians, Barth for example, speak of theology as “science,” but here it is clear the word is used in the sense of the German “geisteswissenschaft” and not in the sense of the methods of natural science.

Mr. Packer is raising, of course, a very important question of the criterion of truth for the Christian, and I am sympathetic with his emphasis upon the importance of this question.

Union Theological Seminary

New York, N. Y.

How much longer will we contend that the Bible is the final authority for Christians? Surely we have discovered that no one sees the Bible just as it is, but only as he sees it according to the background of his understanding.… Sooner or later we must admit that the Church, the extension of the Incarnation in the world, is the final authority. No self-appointed man or group of men has the right to assume that position for another. Only the Church is big, wise and holy enough to do that. Why then do we not admit that we are rebels and lay down our arms?

Superintendent

The Akron District

North-East Ohio Conference, Methodist Church

Akron, Ohio

Thank you very much for the two first articles of [the November 24 issue]. They are vital and powerful treatments on the Bible.

I appreciate [your] balance and sanity of presentation of biblical truth, as well as [your] practice of Christian love. While I accept the fundamentals of the Christian faith I cannot see a rabid fighting fundamentalism that goes out of its way to find and pick quarrels with those who do not see eye to eye with them.

The Rock Hill Presbyterian Church

Bellaire, Ohio

SOCIAL DRINKING

You speak of the “approval of social drinking voted by the Protestant Episcopal Church’s Convention in Miami Beach this fall.” (“News,” Dec. 22 issue).

I was a Deputy in this Convention and I am not aware that we voted on the subject of social drinking at all.… I assume that the misunderstanding arises from distortion of a publication of the Joint Commission entitled “Alcohol, Alcoholism and Social Drinking.” This was not voted upon by the Convention.…

Alpine, Tex.

The notorious “Report” of a committee on alcoholism which was placed before the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church last October has unfortunately been misrepresented in both the daily press and the temperance press as setting forth the position of the Episcopal Church. Actually, the Report was merely presented, never approved or disapproved by the Bishops and never considered by the Convention, and was intended to be one of several steps of approach to the whole problem.

Wollaston, Mass.

• CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S news section fell into the same error as many other journals and regrets the mistake. In fairness to the Protestant Episcopal Church, we are glad to set the record straight. The action in question was correctly set forth in our original Miami Beach report (Nov. 10 issue).—Ed.

MEN OF UNION

The three new presidents in our seminaries—McCormick, San Francisco, and now Princeton—are all Union Seminary men. Is that a sine qua non?

Phoenix, Ariz.

• The Union Seminary attended by Dr. James I. McCord (see Oct. 27 issue) is the Southern Presbyterian institution in Richmond, Va., rather than the New York divinity school.—Ed.

THANKS

Sincere thanks for what you have given us in this superb magazine.

Christian Reformed

Modesto, Calif.

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