Meet The Magi

Where is he?

Where is the promised King?

Why do you ask? We knew him well,

For once he passed this way.

He healed our sick, he preached for us,

And came to dinner, too.

Indeed, it sometimes seems

That he is with us still,

We have such memories.

That star you followed we

Have set in galaxies

Of Christmas incandescence

To twinkle on our skylines.

Your quest for him we know;

In effigy you ride

Across our lawns and windows.

But look about you, Magi,

For where has he not been?

That cathedral bears his name,

These hospitals have grown

From a story he once told—

We tell it still to children.

But where is he?

We do not know.

If you find him, bring us word

For we might worship too.

Where is he?

Where is the Lord’s Anointed?

He has gone. We broke his yoke;

We have cast away his cords.

Like the corpse of our dead god,

Stalin, we have flung him out

From the people’s mausoleum.

Above your phantom star

We raise another, red

With blood of Bethlehem.

To us, and not to him has come

The East, and all its treasures.

Where is he?

Where is Christ the King?

We know. Thus it is written,

And thus it came to pass—

His sufferings and glory.

We know where he has gone,

The way we also know;

He lives, he rules, he comes;

All power on earth is his

And we are witnesses.

We know, and since you ask,

We point you to the Scripture.

You must excuse us now—

It is a busy season.

Just follow the star to Bethlehem—

You can’t miss it.

EUTYCHUS

Kenosis

Thank you and the author for sundry stimulating suggestions in the article on “The Kenotic Theory” (Oct. 27 issue). But may I raise two questions?

First, if “God certainly limited himself with reference to future choices and deeds of free moral beings,” what does one do with such passages as Matt. 10:30; Eph. 1:11; Isa. 14:27; 43:13; Dan. 4:35; and such doctrines as providence, petitionary prayer, predictive prophecy?

Secondly, in addition to this doctrinal question there is an exegetical one: What becomes of the theory if one accepts the exegetical position set forth by Professor J. Jeremias, TWNT, V:708, to the effect that the “He emptied himself” of Philippians 2:5–11 is simply the Greek rendering of the Hebrew text of Isaiah 53:12, “He poured out or surrendered his life unto death?” On this interpretation the “central passage” on which the kenotic theory is built refers to the death of Christ and not at all to the Incarnation.

WILLIAM CHILDS ROBINSON

Columbia Theological Seminary

Decatur, Ga.

The New Ecclesiarchs

Let us face it. “The values of the marketplace are the values of the church.”

William Henry Anderson, Jr. did a remarkable piece of work in “The Organization of the Church” (Oct. 27 issue). The Unitarians and the Universalists are now merged … and we have a “guide” of 50 pages, the introduction to which says, “The new mood is to blend together all the independent parts of our movement into a comprehensive system (the italics are not mine).

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I believe that, with few exceptions, the new ecclesiarchs are dwelling in such a dream world that they might even be called psychotic. They have no relation to reality and are not concerned about it. Papers, reports, but where are the people?

E. L. THEODORE POPP

Unitarian Church

Grafton, Mass.

Anderson’s essay needs but this fresh, modern, headquarters-approved dash of poetry to make it crystal-clear that the essential difference between any particular church and its corporation god lies in the fact that while the church intones “Have faith in God,” headquarters translates it to “Have Faith in Goals.”

Have faith in goals

You need not preach the Word.

Have faith in goals

The print of the great speckled bird,

Have faith in goals

Or get thrown out at third.

Have faith, dear friend, in goals.

Have faith in goals

When quota sheets get boring,

Have faith in goals

Our spirit sweetly snoring,

Have faith in goals

Our first love: cash-adoring!

Have faith, dear friend, in goals.

Have faith in goals

Old Laodicea’s boon,

Have faith in goals

Each year a bigger spoon,

Have faith in goals

Launch cash-nik to the moon.

Have faith, dear friend, in goals.

Have faith in goals

Behold the golden calf,

Have faith in goals

Join Ahab’s dancing staff,

Have faith in goals

God weeps and devils laugh.

Have faith, dear friend, in goals.

W. F. HADEL

Mountain Home, Ark.

For Whom The Toll?

O. K. Armstrong’s article on taxation of churches (Oct. 13 issue) is very apropos—so far as it goes—but kindly tell us what is fair or just about exempting the church buildings, etc. This forces the many millions of good citizens who are not communicants of any church and have no interest in them to pay added taxes. A substantial number even think the church harmful. How must they feel over being taxed for the propaganda which they regard as nonsense?

IRA D. CARDIFF

Yakima, Wash.

Your article … brings up a subject of great interest to me. About 10 years ago I was a County Commissioner, and selected chairman of a fact-finding committee (on tax exemption). I found some real eye openers, under difficulties.

While newspapers and periodicals were eager to print my findings … I found many obstacles placed deliberately in my way by churchmen, both Protestant and Catholic; also by educators and unions. They were bold in their attempts to suppress my reports.

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I was even written up in a state college paper as being opposed to religion and education since I had none of my own:

And yet I was a church deacon and member of the alumni of the college at the time.… I don’t go to church any more. I feel out of place. I am doomed to the everlasting punishment, so I have been told. So be it.

O. M. JORGENSEN

Manhattan, Kan.

A short time before I read your article … was the first I had known that our church (Latter-Day Saints) did not pay taxes on business operations.

I do not feel that this is right or honest. It happens not only in Salt Lake City, hut all over Utah as well as in other states.…

M. C. LEARITT

Neola, Utah

Historicity Of Genesis

I was perplexed with the review … of The Message of Genesis by Ralph Id. Elliott (Oct. 27 issue). Dr. Elliott was my professor in the seminary, and his book reflects the denials which he declared in class. This book has caused no little stir among those of us who subscribe to the complete historicity of Genesis and to the correct interpretation of Genesis by the inspired writers of the New Testament. The book naively ignores the New Testament’s view of the Old Testament.

GENE L. JEFFRIES

Harmony Heights Baptist Church

Joplin, Mo.

Macartney And Machen

Please permit a brief footnote to G. Hall Todd’s attractive review of the new autobiography of Clarence E. Macartney (Oct. 13 issue). The book should he widely read because of its firsthand report of the doctrinal controversies of the twenties and thirties as well as for many other features to which the reviewer draws attention.

Particularly gratifying in my judgment is Macartney’s evaluation of the character and witness of J. Gresham Machen which may serve to correct certain persistent distortions. Yet one statement of Macartney’s in this context is highly disturbing. It is that after Macartney offered to act as Machen’s counsel before the Permanent Judicial Commission in 1936, Machen declined, “saving that if I defended him, he might be acquitted, and that was not what he wanted” (p. 189). The full correspondence is available to myself and shows that at this point Macartney’s memory failed him. In a letter of about 1200 words Machen, while expressing deep gratitude for the offer, declined on the ground that he felt that his counsel, who would be his spokesman in connection with the subsequent appraisal of the trial regardless of its outcome, had to be a person who would “represent my view in the most thoroughgoing way,” which, to Machen’s distress, Macartney did not do.

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At this time indeed (May 9, 1936), after many years of struggle for reformation from within, Machen had come to believe that the denomination was apostate and he longed for a separation. Nevertheless, as this letter also emphasizes, Machen’s sense of obligation to fulfill his ministerial vows was such that he could not condone the evil involved in his anticipated condemnation even though it might become the occasion of good. In his own words in the letter, “But I cannot acquiesce in that evil for a moment, and therefore I am adopting every legitimate means of presenting my case even before the Modernist Permanent Judicial Commission.”

NED B. STONEHOUSE

Westminster Theological Seminary

Philadephia, Pa.

Articles Of Religion

Pastor J. B. Cain, in his letter (Oct. 27 issue), quotes what he states is from the Methodist “Discipline” as to Holy Scriptures containing all things necessary to salvation. Be it known that this is the VI Article of Religion, 1562: “Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation,” of the Church of England, and repeated also in the Articles of Religion of the Episcopal Church.

And, as regards Pastor Mueller’s article in the same issue: “Luther’s ‘Canon Within the Canon,’ the same Article VI goes on to list as Scripture the 14 books of the Apocrypha, with this statement: “And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.…”

ROBERTS E. EHRGOTT

St. John’s Episcopal Church

Mount Prospect, Ill.

Stewardship Of Time

You certainly have dared to review the picture “King of Kings” honestly and sincerely from the Christian’s point of view (News, Oct. 27 issue).

Yesterday on my way to church, I heard the local program of the Church Federation of Los Angeles praising the picture—in fact, taking more time to praise it and a very questionable French picture which deals with adultery and fornication … than they gave “Question 7.”

JAMES K. FRIEDRICH

President

Cathedral Films, Inc.

Burbank, Cal.

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